In unfortuante recent news, a Michigan medical malpractice lawsuit is being filed against Oakwood Hospital on behalf a 48 year old woman from Flat Rock, Michigan died shortly after having brain surgery. Her family alleges that the doctors at Oakwood hospital performed brain surgery on the wrong side of her head.

The woman arrived at the hospital on August 7, 2007 with a severe headache. Dr. Hasnain Haider-Shah found a leak inside her head and diagnosed her with an acute leak from an artery in her brain. The woman was rushed into emergency and surgery was performed immediately.

The suit claims that Dr. Hasnain Haider-Shah should have performed surgery on the left side of the brain but mistakenly performed surgery on her right side first, causing the woman to suffer severe brain damage.

Oakwood Hospital released a statement expressing their condolences and discussing their “Life Wings” program that requires every staff member to be properly trained so something like this never happens again. The suit has yet to be settled.

I am very sorry to hear about this medical malpractice and condolences go out to the family.

A closed head injury victim in a Michigan car accident recieved justice today in a Lenawee County courtoom.  A  jury returned a verdict in a car accident case in favor of the accident vicitm for approximately $2,000,000.00.  This is a great victory for traumatic brain injury victims throughout the State of Michigan.

This is a substantial verdict in for Lenawee County where jurors are considered conservative when awarding compensation to injury victims.  Great credit should be given to the jury for their public duty on this important case and for understanding the complex medicine behind brain injuries.

The negligent driver had insurance company with Farm Bureau Insurance Company.  Incredibly, the insurance adjuster offered only $100,000 before the trial to settle this serious injury case.  Well, the jury clearly understood the magnitude of a closed head injury more than the insurance adjuster.  There will most likely be significant penalties awarded against the Defendant in this case and the insurance company will be probably be required to foot the bill, as it should.

Finding the best lawyer for your brain injury case may be the most important decision that you make.   The simple fact is that not all personal injury lawyers have the necessary expertise to represent a client who has suffered a traumatic brain injury.  To successfully represent a brain injured client, it is essential for a lawyer to have thorough understanding of the medicine and science behind brain injuries.  This is the only way to understand how the course of a brain injury victim’s life has been altered and how it has affected the family of the victim.  It is also the only way to attack and defeat the “hired gun” experts that will be hand-picked by the insurance company to defeat a brain injury claim.

A brain injury is any injury that results in brain cell death and loss of function.  A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an external trauma to the head or violent movement of the head, such as from a fall, car crash or being shaken.  In fact, car accidents cause about 30% of the traumatic brain injuries in Michigan.

TBI is complex and unpredictable in its outcomes. Serious injury can occur without obvious physical disabilities. Both mild and severe TBI can result in lifelong impairments – requiring long-term care services.  In cases involving motor vehicle accidents, the brain injury victim is entitled to significant benefits under the Michigan No-Fault Laws.  These include lifetime medical expenses, attendant care services, lost wages, and even housing accommodations.

Our lawyers are members of the Michigan Brain Injury Association and the Michigan Brain Injury Provider’s Council.  We work closely with the team of doctors and specialists treating our brain injured clients so that we can best assist the client in their recovery efforts and to ensure that the client receives the best possible settlement in his or her brain injury case.

Not all lawyers do this, which can be a major mistake when it comes to assessing and evaluating a client’s case for settlement.  Without understanding the full impact of the injuries on a client’s life and how it will affect them in the future, a lawyer simply cannot provide the best representation to the client.

A victim of a traumatic brain injury or closed head injury often has a team of medical specialists to assist  in the recovery and rehabilitation.  Each member of the team has a different background, specialty, and purpose and it is the teamwork between them all that works best for the patient.

A neuropsychologist is not a physician in the strictest sense, considering that he is essentially a psychologist specializing in treating functional disorders of the brain as well as behavioral malfunctioning.

You cannot expect a neuropsychologist to order for the routine tests often demanded by other physicians like EEGs, MRIs, or CT scans. On the contrary a neuropsychologist prefers to conduct a series of written examinations followed by personal interviews with the brain-injured victim. This series of tests is often referred to as a testing ‘battery’.

What is the purpose of such a testing battery?   The tests are done with the sole purpose of identifying some of the critical functional aspects of the brain. This includes memory capacity both short and long term, abstract reasoning skills, attention span, ability to focus, executive functioning capacity, motor skills and other emotional and cognitive traits. Based on the results of such tests along with other medical information, the neuropsychologist is then in a position to comment regarding the severity of the brain injury, its most viable treatment procedure and also predict what the future holds for the patient.

Opinions and viewpoints of the neuropsychologist are given serious cognizance by the jury in case there is a lawsuit filed by the victim of a traumatic brain injury or his family. He is treated as an authority when it is a matter of establishing the severity of the brain injury. The test results often go a long way to ratify the permanence of the injury and confirm the victim’s inability to work ever in his life.

A neuropsychologist often doubles up as a counselor and a therapist to bring back the brain-injured patient as close  to his pre-injury state.  They often also often provide group counseling sessions and recommend other forms of important rehabilitation.  They are an essential part of the brain injury treatment and recovery team.

Importance of the neurologist in the management of traumatic brain injuries

Doctors who treat a victim of closed brain injury usually comprise of several specialties, each one contributing his own perspectives and evaluations to the overall treatment regimen. Among others, the neurologist plays a key role in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

Who is a neurologist and what role does he play in the treating a brain-injured patient? A neurologist is a physician (MD or DO) specializing in treating ailments affecting the brain and the central nervous system. A neurological problem can have various physical manifestations including structural abnormalities or malfunctioning of specific zones within the entire nervous system of the body.

The neurologists’ job is to diagnose and treat such conditions, while physicians like psychiatrists and neuropsychologists concentrate on rectifying other injury-related problems like cognitive and mental disorders. However none of these specialties work in isolation. They work as a team.

After a traumatic brain injury, no treatment can start without the knowledge of the precise state of the victim’s nervous system. This is where a neurologist plays a critical role. He performs a comprehensive test to provide important information. The scope of his examination include the 12 important nerves of the head and neck, reflex action, sense of balance and muscle coordination, muscle strength and of course his mental and emotional state.

From his test results the treating doctors can access vital information about the victim’s state of consciousness, response to surroundings, general behavioral traits, orientation, attention span and memory.

There are a number of diagnostic tests which the neurologist performs including lumbar puncture, electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography/nerve conduction velocity (EMG/NCV) to identify the precise nature and severity of the brain injury.

A neurologist may at times refer  the victim of a traumatic brain injury to a neuropsychologist depending on the results of diagnostic tests like EEG, EMG, CT and MRI. He does this mainly to seek the opinion of the neuropsychologist as to which areas of the brain are damaged and which is still untouched by the trauma. This critical assessment of the situation would allow him to conclude how the trauma has impacted the victim’s thought procedure and outward behavior.

Diagnosis, treatment and recovery of victims of other types of problems related to brain injuries including seizures are also undertaken by a neurologist.