Emergency rooms are generally set up to deal with life threatening and emergent physical injuries and not the more subtle cognitive deficits that may result from a neurological insult to the brain. If there are not “gross” signs of damage, such as hemorrhaging, swelling or contusion of the brain, or signs of skull fracture or other serious trauma to the head, a brain injury may be ignored or not diagnosed in the emergency room. In addition, routine neurological examination is not necessarily capable of picking up subtle, cognitive impairments that can result from a diffuse axonal injury, which is injury to the brain cells themselves on a microscopic level. Similarly, neuroradiological diagnostic tests are not equipped to pick up microscopic damage that results from an acceleration/deceleration injury to the brain.
If you are seeking legal representation or advice following a traumatic brain injury in the Boston, MA region, David Dwork can help. David Dwork is the head of Barron & Stadfeld’s Traumatic Brain Injury Group and has been representing TBI survivors for over thirty years. Dwork is the premier Boston personal and head injury lawyer. He can be contacted at (617) 531-6580 or by email at drp@barronstad.com.
