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.

All of us are aware of the seriousness of a closed brain injury. While the main focus is on the treatment of the condition, the one question that keep bothering us is what could be the short and long term implications when an individual has suffered a traumatic brain injury or TBI?

There is no definitive answer to this question. The reason for this is that it is difficult to assess the condition as well as predict its development and final outcome soon after the injury has happened. Closed brain injuries can be varied in type and severity and since the injuries sustained in the brain are usually complicated by nature, it may take months or even years to predict what is going to happen to the future of the patient concerned.

Any traumatic brain injury, irrespective of its severity, entails significant outflow of money, both in terms of diagnosis as well as treatment and rehabilitation of the patient. To add to this, chances are that the victim may not ever be able to pursue his professional life, remaining unemployable for the rest of his life. The most important point to note in such a situation is that the trauma could have been the result of someone’s negligence or carelessness, where the sufferer is a mere victim of circumstances.

To arrive at a pragmatic prognosis in the case of a closed brain injury, doctors study some important indicators which help them to come to a realistic conclusion. These include the duration and severity of the coma as well as the precise location and the dimension of the trauma sustained.

The duration during which a victim of a closed injury lies in a state of coma is a definite indicator of an expected post-trauma amnesia as well as the time he would require to recover. The first few hours after the accident are critical for the doctors, as this is the time when they assess the severity of the impact to the brain.

If the closed brain injury is mild in nature, then the victim can suffer temporary coma and amnesia for a few seconds stretching to a few minutes at the most.  Recovery in such cases usually stabilizes within a few days or weeks. On the other hand if the victim goes into a comatose state that lasts some weeks,  it is expected that the amnesia resulting from the trauma can also last several months with recovery stabilizing after months or even years.

To arrive at any conclusion regarding the long term implications of a traumatic brain injury, doctors depend on the location and dimension of the trauma site. Since there are specific areas of the brain that are responsible for the various cognitive and behavioral faculties, injury to such areas can be a reliable indicator of the kind and degree of impairment that the patient is likely to suffer.

In conclusion, it can be said that the recovery time from a traumatic brain injury is often directly linked to the severity of the trauma. The first step in the treatment of a TBI, immediately after the accident, is to reduce swelling, since this can reactivate the brain cells to resume functioning to some extent. The portions of the brain which have suffered permanent damage are to an extent helped by areas of the brain which have been left untouched by the trauma.

An important aspect of brain injury treatment and recovery for traumatic brain injury survivors is often participation in support groups.   These are often very helpful for both the brain injury survivors and their families.   Meeting other survivors and their families who are experiencing or have been through the treatment and recovery process provides an excellent source of both understanding and comfort.

Support groups take a number of different forms.  They may assist in  providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others’ experiences, providing sympathetic understanding of what each other are going through.  They can also establish social networks and can  work to inform the public or engage in advocacy.

The Michigan Brain Injury Association has a number of support groups throughout the State of Michigan for brain injury survivors and their families.  These groups meet together, usually monthly, to offer support and advice for each other.

In Ypsilanti, Michigan, the brain injury support group meets approximately once every two months.  Call for specific information.  The meeting are held at the Rainbow Rehabilitation Center, 5570 Whittaker Road, Ypsilanti, MI.  For more information contact Dr. Colin King at (800) 968-6644 or Dr. Mariann Young (248) 427-1310.

For more information about our Michigan Brain Injury Lawyers and the legal rights of brain injury victims in Michigan, contact our office at (800) 606-1717.

An important aspect of brain injury treatment and recovery for traumatic brain injury survivors is often participation in support groups.   These are often very helpful for both the brain injury survivors and their families.   Meeting other survivors and their families who are experiencing or have been through the treatment and recovery process provides an excellent source of both understanding and comfort.

Support groups take a number of different forms.  They may assist in  providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others’ experiences, providing sympathetic understanding of what each other are going through.  They can also establish social networks and can  work to inform the public or engage in advocacy.

The Michigan Brain Injury Association has a number of support groups throughout the State of Michigan for brain injury survivors and their families.  These groups meet together, usually monthly, to offer support and advice for each other.

In Tip of the Mitt, Michigan, the brain injury support group meets the 4^th Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m., at Northern Michigan Hospital, Connable Ave., Petoskey, MI.   For more information, contact Harriet Graham at (231) 537-4697.

For more information about our Michigan Brain Injury Lawyers and the legal rights of brain injury victims in Michigan, contact our office at (800) 606-1717.

An important aspect of brain injury treatment and recovery for traumatic brain injury survivors is often participation in support groups.   These are often very helpful for both the brain injury survivors and their families.   Meeting other survivors and their families who are experiencing or have been through the treatment and recovery process provides an excellent source of both understanding and comfort.

Support groups take a number of different forms.  They may assist in  providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others’ experiences, providing sympathetic understanding of what each other are going through.  They can also establish social networks and can  work to inform the public or engage in advocacy.

The Michigan Brain Injury Association has a number of support groups throughout the State of Michigan for brain injury survivors and their families.  These groups meet together, usually monthly, to offer support and advice for each other.

In Wayne/Oakland County, Michigan, the brain injury support group meets the 2nd Thursday of each month at 7:30 p.m., at  Botsford Administration Building, 20850 Grand River, Farmington Hills, MI.  For more information, contact Sol Baltimore at (248) 569-3633.

For more information about our Michigan Brain Injury Lawyers and the legal rights of brain injury victims in Michigan, contact our office at (800) 606-1717.