The design of a motor vehicle can help reduce the severity of injuries to occupants when a crash occurs. However, when collisions involve high speeds, immovable objects or vehicles of vastly different sizes, wrecks can still cause severe injuries. Spinal cord injuries are among the most notorious and feared possible injuries after a car crash. The spinal cord is part of the nervous system that helps conduct information from the body to the brain and vice versa.
Spinal cord injuries can occur anywhere from at the top of the neck to right above the hips. The person with the spinal cord injury may develop impaired motor function and a loss of physical sensation below the point of injury. Those symptoms can impact every aspect of their lives. Do people ever recover from spinal cord injuries?
Treatment is possible in some cases
Many spinal cord injuries lead to permanent symptoms. Some spinal cord injuries are less severe than others. Incomplete spinal cord injuries do not actually sever the spinal cord. Instead, they pinch or cut the cord, which can still cause functional limitations and a loss of sensation. However, allowing the body to heal, physical therapy and surgery can potentially diminish the lasting symptoms caused by an incomplete spinal cord injury.
In recent years, medical researchers have also made some impressive advances in helping people regain motor function after a complete spinal cord injury. Sadly, such treatments are still in the experimental stage and are not yet widely available. Most people with complete spinal cord injuries experience lifelong symptoms.
Those with spinal cord injuries can expect to have permanent changes to their lifestyle. They may very likely require ongoing medical intervention even if they have incomplete injuries. Their earning potential may drop, especially if they work in a blue-collar profession.
Someone who develops a spinal cord injury because of a car crash may have losses that go well beyond the available insurance coverage. A personal injury lawsuit may be one of the only options for recovering the financial losses generated by a catastrophic injury like a spinal cord injury.
Understanding the prognosis and practical impact of an injury may help people correctly value any compensation to which they may be entitled after a motor vehicle collision caused by another’s actions or inactions.
