Brain Injury Claims for Social Security Disability in Virginia
Jerry Lutkenhaus can help you with your claim of a brain injury. A head injury, or traumatic brain injury, is any type of trauma to the head that results in an injury to the skull, brain or scalp. Trauma is the leading cause of death in the United States for people between the ages of 1 and 44, and it is the third leading cause of death overall.
When hiring Social Security Disability attorney to represent a person who has suffered a brain injury, it is necessary that the attorney have knowledge of head injuries. Jerry Lutkenhaus understands the unique problems of someone who has suffered a brain injury.
Brain injuries can range from mild to severe, and can be classified as closed-head injuries, or open-head injuries. An open-head injury is when the object that has made contact with the head breaks through the skill and enters the brain. Statistics show that there are approximately 2 million brain injuries reported each year in this country, and of those, more than 51,000 were fatal, and 20-30 percent of the surviving victims suffered permanent, irreversible disabilities. The most common types of brain injuries are:
Concussion: an alteration of consciousness, transient or prolonged, due to a blow to the head that may be followed by transient amnesia, vertigo, nausea, and weak pulse.
Anoxic brain injury: caused when the oxygen supply to the brain is cut off.
Traumatic brain injury: results from rapid acceleration and deceleration of the brain, including shearing (tearing) of nerve fibers, contusion (bruising) of the brain tissue against the skull, brain stem injuries, and edema (swelling).
Brain injury accidents can dramatically affect victims for the rest of their lives. The long-term effects of a traumatic brain injury can include reduction in motor skills, cognitive deficits, and physical deficits, which can include walking, balance and coordination, and fine motor skills.
Cognitive deficits include difficulty in language and communication, information processing, memory and perceptual skills. Many victims exhibit changes in their personality (such as mood swings) & major lifestyle changes. Loss of short- and long-term memory can often result from brain injuries. Other symptoms that affect a brain injury victim might include emotional problems, speech complications, loss of sensations, seizures, paralysis, coma or even death. After a brain injury, doing things that once seemed easy become extremely difficult. A great deal of mental effort is usually required to do things that once required little or no effort before the injury. The injured party often becomes disabled at their job and they become unpredictable, unreliable, and sometimes violent.
Through experience and education, Jerry Lutkenhaus can evaluate traumatic brain injuries and successfully pursue claims for Social Security Disability. It is always important to consult with an attorney regarding brain injury cases. Jerry Lutkenhaus can help you obtain compensation for this type of injury.
Contact the Law Offices of Jerry Lutkenhaus.
