Basic Head Injury Information

Frank Bailey — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:42:06 GMT

In my experience brain injuries are the most undiagnosed injuries Americans suffer. Car wrecks, motorcycle wrecks, and bicycle wrecks account for at least half of all TBIs and the largest portion of TBI in people under age 75. For those people aged 75 and older falls cause the majority of TBIs.

Why are brain injuries so undiagnosed in emergency rooms? Emergency rooms are concerned with saving lives and treating obvious injuries. Brain injuries are not always apparent when a person has just been in a wreck. Physicians are focused on broken bones, and more obvious injuries. Unless emergency room physicians are looking for brain injury, the brain injury may slip through the cracks.

People should have a basic understanding of the most common symptoms. If there is a change in the way you think, I call it fuzzy thinking, or if you have trouble finding words when you talk, these are common symptoms of a traumatic brain injury. Other symptoms are dizziness, headaches, and changes in temperament.

Traumatic brain injury is a frequent cause of major long-term disability unless treated. Outcome for patients with head injury depends heavily on the cause. For example, in the US, patients with TBIs from falls have an 89% survival rate, while only 9% of patients with firearm-related TBIs survive.

Car manufacturers have helped reduce the number of brain injuries by making cars safer, but they still have a long way to go to become completely safe. Motorcycle helmets help, but if a rider lands on his head, the helmet may not prevent a brain injury even though it may have saved the rider’s life.

If you or a family member have been in a serious wreck, I suggest you be examined by a trained medical care provider to rule out brain injury, or to get treatment.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Frank Bailey

Attorneys Fight "Fake Bad Scale"

Frank Bailey — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:35:40 GMT

So the insurance company said you were faking your injuries. There’s a new test defense lawyers are trying to use to show people with legitimate injuries are faking. It’s called the “fake bad scale.” A few courts have ruled the test does not meet the standard required for evidence in court, but you can bet the defense lawyers won’t give up.

The test was created in 1991 by a defense orientated neuropsychologist, Dr. Paul Lees-Haley. The test has 43 true or false questions such as, “I have very few headaches.” If you answer 23 or more to indicate you have those symptoms, the test is supposed to show you are faking or over reporting your injuries.

If you are sent to a neuropsychologist for an exam you should always answer the questions truthfully. The problem comes in to play if the person taking the test has a brain injury or other serious injury and has problems with fatigue, depression, memory loss and other common symptoms. The test will show a high score.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys have begun to challenge the test in court. I suspect in most jurisdictions plaintiffs’ attorneys will be able to keep the test out of court. But that doesn’t help the people who are forced to take the test if their judge lets it in.

We need to band together and contact the University of Minnesota and demand this flawed test be removed from its MMPI-2 personality test.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Frank Bailey

Little Rock Personal Injury Lawyer - Head & Brain Injuries

Basic Head Injury Information

Attorneys Fight "Fake Bad Scale"