What you should do if you have suffered a brain injury in a car accident.If you or a family member have been unfortunate enough to have been injured in a car accident and sustained a brain injury, there are many things that you need to do.  When it comes to your car accident claim, there are specific things that you should do to help you increase the chances of being successful in your car accident claim.

  1. Follow your doctor's advice. Of course, this should be self-evident. It's important that you follow your doctor's orders. This includes getting proper follow-up care, completing all recommended medical tests, going to therapy appointments, or other recommendations. If your doctors recommend that you take some time off from work, you should follow their advice. This is so important for two reasons.

    First, it increases your likelihood of getting better. You want to put yourself in the best chance to recover from your brain injury. The second reason is that when you make your auto claim for your brain injury, it's inevitable that the insurance companies will be very suspect of your claim. They will comb through your medical records in an attempt to distort what you've done. Any recommendation that you haven't been following is going to be questioned, so take these orders seriously.
  2. Make sure that you've seen the right specialist. In brain injury cases there are typically specialists that you're referred to properly diagnose and treat you. Those typically include a neurologist (a brain doctor) and a neuropsychologist. A neurologist specializes in brain medicine and brain injury and is the go-to person for what kind of brain injury you sustained and what type of treatment you should be pursuing.

    Should your symptoms persist, a neuropsychologist is an individual that your neurologist will typically send to you to put you through what they call a neuropsychological evaluation. This evaluation is essentially a day-long battery of tests in which they test your cognitive function. From the testing results, the neuropsychologist can inform your neurologist whether or not the testing results are consistent with a person with a brain injury. After this, the neurologist will have more evidence that you do have a brain injury. Should your brain injury persist over months and years, you may end up having more than one neuropsychological evaluation to determine whether or not you are getting better or worse.
  3. Be upfront and honest with your treating doctors about any preexisting conditions that you may have suffered before the accident. It's better to be upfront and honest about what's going on with your pre‑accident health. Should there be apparent omissions in your medical history, the insurance companies will investigate and thoroughly examine your medical issues. They will ultimately claim that you've misled your doctors, preventing them from properly diagnosing and treating you. The more information that your doctors have, the better chance they have of helping you medically. Remember with any injury case; the biggest priority is your medical recovery and not your personal injury claim. There's never any guarantee that you'll see one single cent from your car accident claim. Physical improvement is always something that should be sought.
  4. Look for and join brain injury support groups. While you or your family may not typically go to support groups, recognize that a brain injury is like any other condition. There are people out there that feel your pain and know that you need help. Support groups allow you the opportunity to talk with individuals going through very similar circumstances. It also is a source of information. Those same people are experiencing what you're experiencing, they may know things that you didn't. When you're working together with a team, it puts you in a position to get well. Support groups will also help provide emotional support. It will also help your family because they will have more tools to help you.

The above recommendations are not everything that you could or should do. These tips come from my experience on brain injury cases. They are common tips that are sometimes not fully explored and followed. You should always defer to your medical doctors because I'm not a doctor. However, we've dealt with insurance companies and litigation of these cases, and this article is meant to provide you more information about what to expect in litigation and how to put yourself in the best position to be properly compensated for your injury.

A brain injury is a very difficult thing to experience, and often it's misunderstood by family members and friends. Should you have any more questions about your auto accident case, particularly if it deals with a brain injury, reach out to Ben Glass Law. Our phone number is (703) 584-7277. We've got a bunch of information for you, and we look forward to talking to you. We wish you a great recovery.

Brian Glass