According to a special state-sponsored report, more than 25,000 Massachusetts residents sustained traumatic brain injuries in 2019. Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) account for millions of emergency room visits across the country every year, and can leave some survivors saddled with burdensome medical bills, long-term side effects and even legal expenses.

When an accident victim suffers a TBI as the direct result of another person’s negligence, the TBI survivor may be within their rights to seek compensation for their injury-related losses. To fight for fair compensation, however, survivors must first work to understand the full value of both their immediate losses and future care needs. Here’s a brief overview of some of the long-term physical, emotional and financial costs commonly associated with traumatic brain injuries and an explanation of how brain injury claims are handled under Massachusetts law.

What is a traumatic brain injury?

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a type of injury commonly caused by a sudden jolt, blow or penetrating injury to the head. While there are several different kinds of traumatic brain injuries that may vary in severity or presentation, TBIs can significantly disrupt normal brain function and cause a wide variety of both short and long-term side effects.

Depending on the symptoms and severity, TBIs may fall into one of the following categories:

• Mild TBIs: Some injury survivors are surprised to learn that concussions are actually a mild form of TBI. Mild TBIs may cause immediate and long-term symptoms like temporary loss of consciousness, confusion, headaches, memory problems and more.
• Moderate TBIs: Survivors of these injuries often experience prolonged periods of unconsciousness and face enhanced symptoms – such as cognitive difficulties, chronic pain, and speech or vision changes – that may require extensive medical intervention to manage properly.
• Severe TBIs: When an accident victim suffers a severe TBI, they may fall into a coma or experience pervasive cognitive and motor changes that lead to lifelong disability.

These categories provide a basic framework for classifying TBIs, but it is important to understand that even seemingly mild injuries can result in long-term side effects or lead to dangerous health complications down the line. This is why early intervention is vital to mitigating harm and ruling out potentially life-threatening TBI-related complications.

Common long-term effects of brain injuries

It might go without saying, but our brains are responsible for performing nearly all of our bodily functions. As a result, even a small change in brain function can directly affect a TBI survivor’s physical, emotional and cognitive well-being. While brain injuries don’t often follow a specific formula in terms of symptom presentation or duration, many survivors report long-term health challenges like:

Cognitive difficulties

Our brains perform a wide variety of cognitive tasks from moment to moment. When a TBI disrupts a brain’s basic processes, it can lead to problems like:

• Memory loss
• Difficulty concentrating
• Slowed mental processing speeds
• Impaired judgment
• Communication changes

These kinds of cognitive symptoms can seriously impact a TBI survivor’s ability to return to their pre-injury work, school and social routines. Some TBI sufferers also experience changes in their sensory processing that can make it difficult for them to return to their “normal” activities after an accident.

Emotional and behavioral changes

Brain injuries may lead to primary or secondary mood and behavioral shifts. Many survivors report experiencing mood swings, increased irritability, impulsivity and difficulty regulating their emotions after an accident. While some of these symptoms may arise as the direct result of damage to the brain, others may take shape in the months following the initial injury.

It’s easy for TBI survivors to become anxious, depressed or otherwise distressed in the months following their accident – particularly when their other TBI symptoms prevent them from engaging in the relationships and environments they used to enjoy.

Physical complications

In addition to the cognitive and emotional aspects of TBI recovery, the physical impact of a brain injury can be incredibly challenging for survivors and their loved ones. Many TBI sufferers experience chronic headaches, dizziness, balance issues, sleep disturbances, vision problems, speech changes and even seizures long after their initial injury. All of the physical symptoms can be incredibly distressing and may require extensive medical intervention to keep under control.

All in all, the long-term impact of a TBI can extend into nearly every aspect of a survivor’s life and become a source of personal, professional, and financial strain. Unfortunately, the resources needed to adequately address these challenges often surpass a survivor’s individual capabilities. In some cases, this can leave victims feeling retraumatized and disenfranchised by the medical and legal systems in the months or years following their initial accident.

The financial impact of a traumatic brain injury

As noted above, the long-term costs of a TBI often extend far beyond hospital bills alone. Even survivors of mild brain injuries can find themselves facing long-term challenges related to their injuries – many of which come at an actual, financial cost. Survivors of more severe TBIs may be even more financially affected by their injuries, as these patients tend to require ongoing medical care and rehabilitation services for months or years at a time.

Some other potential long-term costs of a TBI include:

• Specialist appointments like neurological evaluations
• Physical, occupational or speech therapy services
• Mental health counseling or psychiatric treatment to address emotional trauma, anxiety or depression
• Prescription medications
• Wheelchairs, assistive devices or home modifications
• Long-term caregiving or supervised living arrangements for those with disabling injuries
• Lost wages or reduced capacity to work after an accident

With all of these potential costs in mind, it may come as no surprise that research indicates the lifetime cost of a severe TBI can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per case. Given that many American families are not in a position to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional lifetime expenses, many survivors of negligence-related TBIs pursue personal injury claims to recover some of the funds they need to move forward.

How do brain injury claims work in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, brain injury survivors may be within their rights to file a claim for compensation if they can show that their TBI was the direct result of another person’s breach of some legal duty of care. For example, if you suffered a TBI in a car accident that was caused by another driver’s negligence, you may be able to hold that individual accountable for some of your economic and non-economic losses.

While some brain injury cases are ultimately settled via the standard insurance process, others – especially those involving catastrophic injuries with high-dollar damages – must be brought to civil court. In either scenario, accident victims who were injured due to another party’s negligence commonly pursue claims for damages like:

• Past and future medical treatment and rehabilitation services
• Reduced earning capacity and lost wages
• Long-term prescription medication costs
• Assistive devices, medical equipment and/or accessibility-related home modifications
• Mental health treatment and/or psychiatric medications
• Pain and suffering

One important qualifier here: Massachusetts follows a modified comparative negligence rule when assigning liability in personal injury cases. Under this system, injured parties are only entitled to compensatory damages if their level of fault did not exceed the fault of the other involved party. In most cases, that means if you were 51% or more responsible for the accident that caused your brain injury, you may be barred from recovering any compensation.

Let’s say, however, that you were deemed 40% responsible for your accident. In this case, you may still be considered eligible for compensation, but any damages you receive will be reduced by 40% to account for your contributory fault. An experienced brain injury lawyer can help you protect the integrity of your claim by defending you against unsubstantiated or inflated claims of contributory negligence so you can keep more of the compensatory damages you deserve.

Final thoughts

Traumatic brain injuries can be life-changing for accident survivors and their loved ones. Between the physical, emotional and cognitive symptoms commonly associated with these injuries, a TBI often kickstarts a ripple effect that can impact nearly every aspect of a patient’s life. For many TBI patients, recovery is long, slow and – at times – frustrating, with the strain only compounded by the potentially devastating financial fallout.

At Santoro & Gray, our team understands how taxing the TBI recovery process can be, even before factoring in the added stress of a contested insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit. That’s why we are committed to providing trauma-informed, boutique legal support for brain injury survivors looking to recover fair and appropriate compensation for their losses.

If you or someone you know suffered a traumatic brain injury in a negligence-related accident and is facing a long road to recovery, give us a call today or fill out our online contact form to speak to a member of our team. We are standing by to hear your story, listen to your needs and offer you the clarity necessary to take your next step with confidence.