Experiencing a personal injury can be extremely traumatic, and the lasting effects of it can often be felt long after the initial injury itself. These effects may be physical or mental. Even after your body has healed, your mind can still be facing the consequences. Let us look at some of the most common physical and emotional injuries that can occur as a direct result of a personal injury accident.
Physical Personal Injuries
With most personal injuries, the majority of the damage occurs physically. The severity of these injuries depends on the type of accident and the damage done; however, they can range from minor scrapes and bruises, to broken bones and traumatic head injuries.
Some of the most common physical personal injuries that occur are known as soft tissue injuries. These include sprains, strains, and tears to soft tissues in the body like ligaments, tendons, and muscles.
An extremely common form of soft tissue injury that happens is whiplash – named for the way your body cracks like a whip when the impact causes upper body movement forward and backward rapidly. Most common in motor vehicle accidents, this is a kind of soft tissue injury that affects the neck and upper back muscles specifically. This motion can also lead to a concussion, which is an injury to the brain, because of the rapid movement of your head.
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) can also result from accidents. These serious injuries are detrimental to the present mental function of an individual and can be permanent. This kind of injury can result in memory loss, behavioral changes, impaired language skills, and loss of sensation. Experiencing any TBI also places victims at higher risk for brain injuries in the future.
This is by no means an all-inclusive list of the lasting physical injuries an accident victim can experience. In many cases, multiple injuries are sustained at one time, and they can have a serious impact on the individual’s quality of life.
Mental Personal Injuries
While physical injuries are the ones most addressed, we should not overlook the presence of mental injuries that can occur as well. Traumatic incidents can cause emotional distress not visible to others, but which is very real and very scary for the affected individual to experience.
Mental trauma resulting from an accident can be long-lasting and may require attention from a professional such as a psychiatrist or therapist to adjust back to everyday life.
Examples of psychological conditions resulting from accidents are depression, anxiety, fear, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms can include loss of appetite, loss of interest in activities, insomnia, and travel anxiety. PTSD and other chronic stress conditions can lead to physical pain and changes in the central nervous system. These mental injuries can affect an individual’s mindset to the extreme where they are no longer able to function and go about their lives how they did prior to the incident.
Compensation for Injuries
When it comes to pursuing compensation for your personal injury, it is important to consider all of the costs related to all of the injuries you have sustained, physical or mental. This includes doctor’s appointments, for both physical and mental injuries, loss of wages, and more. It’s important to have a legal team that has the experience and knowledge necessary to represent you and get you the compensation you deserve. The team at Willoughby Shulman Injury Lawyers is ready and able to represent you. Contact us today.