You get in a car accident on the way home from work, and you lose consciousness when your head strikes the dashboard. You wake up in the hospital, where they tell you that you’ve suffered from a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
You hope that it will simply heal like other injuries would, but you notice that the symptoms tend to linger. You start wondering if this injury is ever going to fully heal. What types of complications are you facing?
The brain has limited healing abilities
The unfortunate truth about the human brain is that it is a very delicate organ and its healing abilities are quite limited. Unlike other types of cells, brain cells typically cannot regenerate. So, if the traumatic brain injury was serious enough that it led to cell death, those cells may be lost forever.
This doesn’t mean there’s no avenue for healing. In some cases, the brain can find new neural pathways. Someone could lose the ability to speak or walk due to their TBI, but they could slowly regain that ability over time.
However, your brain is not always able to find pathways. Some of the changes that you experience may be permanent. These could include physical or cognitive challenges, along with personality changes.
What can you do?
The best thing you can do is to work with medical professionals who understand brain injuries and the types of therapy and rehabilitation that can give you the best chance of recovery. In many cases, those who are injured will see the most recovery in the months after the accident. So getting this medical help quickly can really change your future prognosis.
Of course, this type of intensive medical care can also be very expensive. Even if you have insurance, it may not cover all of your costs. Plus, if your changes are permanent, you may find that it also impacts things like your marital relationship or your ability to hold down your career.
For all of these costs and more, be sure that you understand what legal rights you may have to seek compensation from the person who caused the initial accident.