Tips For Dealing With Spinal Cord Injury

Any spinal cord injury belongs in the class of medical conditions known as catastrophic injuries. It proves catastrophic for both the victim and the insurer. Both of them get forced to bear an added financial burden. By working together, the victim and the insurance company can better handle the impact of a spinal cord injury.

Basic facts about injuries to the spine’s cord:

The extent of the damage depends on the location of the impact on the spine’s structure. An impact mid-spine might cause paraplegia, no sensations in the legs or lower trunk. An impact on the neck could result in quadriplegia, loss of sensation in the arms, the legs and the entire torso. A spinal cord injury might be either complete or incomplete. When it is incomplete, the victim retains some slight level of sensation in the affected body parts.

The expected outcome

The availability of expert and specialized care improves the chances for a better outcome. Such care, reduces the likelihood that the injured patient might develop some type of complication.

Possible complications:

• Pressure ulcers on those points where the patient’s body has almost constant contact with bedding and a bed’s surface.
• Urinary tract infections
• Respiratory infections
• Neuropathic pain, i.e. pain caused by a defect in the nervous system.

The needs that must be met by means of fair compensation to the injured victim:

• Assistive care, usually care that must be made available on a 24-hour basis;
• Assistive devices, those which help the caregiver to carry out his or her job;
• Possible medications, depending on the existence and severity of any complication;
• Massage therapy
• Occupational therapy; a means for determining the chances that the patient/victim might be able to hold down some type of job;
• Planning for a future loss of earning capacity;
• Planning for future care needs.

Highlighting the significance of future concerns:

The uncertainties relating to the future become a concern for any family in which one of its members has suffered a spinal cord injury. Those uncertainties loom over the victim’s life, regardless of how well he or she may be presently-situated. Even someone that has a degree and can make money by seeing clients in an office must plan for the day when he or she becomes too old to handle such a daily grind.

What plans can be made for that situation? How can all the victim’s needs get met, when he or she stops taking-in added income? Those questions highlight the extent to which future concerns must be addressed by any members of the court, as well as the plaintiff’s Accident Lawyer in Waterloo. Together that team of individuals could be asked to formulate a fair compensation for a victim with an injured spine.