Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) often causes cognitive and psychiatric disorders*. If a negligent driver or company caused the TBI, the victim and his or her family has the right to sue for compensation.
“It is important to get an accident victim the best medical care possible and to have these medical professionals provide evidence of the long-term health affects of the brain injuries,” said Fred Pritzker, an attorney who has won millions for TBI victims. “One of my clients had his head crushed by a tow truck hook. He lost his eye and had severe cognitive and psychiatric problems after the accident. We needed to make sure that he and his wife got the money they needed to help them deal with the affects of the injuries into the future.”
Fred and Eric Hageman are our lead lawyers for these cases. You can contact them for a FREE consultation here.
TBI can cause the following psychiatric disorders:
- Depression. Major depression is common for TBI survivors. Researchers disagree as to the statistic frequency because after a catastrophic injury, boundaries between depression, adjustment disorder and grief become less apparent. For accident victims who develop depression after TBI, there may be alcoholism, anxiety, aggressive behavior, poorer social functioning, higher levels of dissatisfaction with work, lower economic status, less education and a lack of close personal relationships.
- Bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder (manic depression) can be caused by an accident TBI. It causes unusual and severe shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. A TBI accident victim may be aggressive and irritable. The result may be loss of a marriage, a job, and, in some cases, the loss of life via suicide.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). TBI victims with OCD have impaired self-awareness and may not realize obsessions and compulsions as excessive or unreasonable. They may be obsessively slow, resulting in poor function, memory and language.
- Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some authors suggested that mild TBI and PTSD might be mutually exclusive disorders. A study involving traffic accident victims did not find PTSD symptoms in subjects who had been briefly unconscious and had amnesia about the accident. However, some studies were able to find occurrence of PTSD in cases where there was posttraumatic amnesia.
- Psychotic disorders. Psychosis (including schizophrenia-like psychosis) after TBI is possible, but rare. TBI psychotic symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, aggressive behavior, disorganization, catatonia. manifestations.
- Personality changes. Personality changes can include unusual aggression (damaging, threatening or intimidating behavior), apathy (low motivation), emotional instability, rapid mood changes (also bipolar disorder), pathological laughing and crying. disinhibition, self-awareness impairment,
Fred and his team have helped many accident victims and their families get needed compensation. In doing so, they have held wrongdoers accountable for bad behavior that resulted in severe, life-changing injury.
*Schwarzbold M, Diaz A, et al. Psychiatric disorders and traumatic brain injury. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 2008. 4(4): 797–816.