Paralysis is a catastrophic injury that is both life-altering and long-lasting. It can have severe emotional, physical, and financial consequences for an injured person. Victims may face surgeries, rehabilitation, and other long-term impacts from their paralysis. Understanding paralysis injuries can help an injured person move forward with their life and fight for their legal rights at the same time.
What Is a Catastrophic Injury?
A catastrophic injury is a severe injury that substantially affects a person’s daily life and usually impacts a person for a long time. These injuries typically require significant medical treatment and ongoing care. This could include long-term rehabilitation services, invasive surgeries, and even life-supporting care.
Examples of catastrophic injuries include:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Amputation or loss of limb
- Broken or fractured bones
- Spinal cord injuries
- Paralysis
- Loss of vision or hearing
- Blunt force trauma
- Severe burns
- Significant loss of blood or internal bleeding
What Is a Paralysis Injury?
A paralysis injury occurs when you cannot control or make voluntary muscle movements. Paralysis is typically caused by some type of nervous system problem, often a traumatic injury. Injured or severed nerves cannot conduct signals to certain areas of the body. This inability to conduct nerve signals creates a lack of control over those areas. This translates to a lack of movement, or what people commonly understand as paralysis.
Nearly 5.4 million people live with paralysis in the United States. Of these, 27.3% are victims of spinal cord injuries. Paralysis injuries are commonly caused by accidents and trauma such as:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Workplace accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Industrial accidents
- Aviation accidents
Many other causes could also lead to paralysis. The serious symptoms and limitations of paralysis disrupt normal life and lead to financial hardship.
Degrees of Severity for Paralysis
There are several levels of paralysis a person can face. Some may be temporary, such as Bell’s palsy, which paralyzes facial muscles. Others are more severe and can be permanent.
- Monoplegia: This affects the use or control of one limb or a single area of the body. For example, an injured victim may lose sensation and control in a leg from their injury. This is typically caused by nerve damage to the specific body area.
- Hemiplegia: This affects an entire side of a person’s body. A stroke or traumatic brain injury most commonly causes it. A person loses most or all of their control over the affected side. Injured persons may recover all or part of their control with treatment.
- Paraplegia: A person who loses control of the lower half of their body is considered paraplegic. This is commonly caused by spinal cord injuries, especially after a serious vehicle crash.
- Quadriplegia: Also called tetraplegia, quadriplegia results in losing motor control from the neck down. It impairs motor and sensory abilities throughout most of the body. This is one of the most serious forms of paralysis, and many injured people never recover.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Paralysis Injuries
Healthcare professionals test for paralysis after a major accident, especially if the injured person suffers symptoms. Emergency and follow-up diagnostic tests help identify whether a person has paralysis, the type, and potential causes.
Common diagnosis methods include:
- X-rays: These scans check for damage to bones around the spinal cord, known as vertebrae. They may also find other bone damage that contributes to paralysis.
- MRIs: A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan uses radio waves and a powerful magnetic field to look for herniated disks, spinal cord compression, and other damage that causes paralysis.
- CT scan:A computerized tomography (CT) scan takes a series of X-ray images from different angles to scan blood vessels, bones, and other soft tissues in the body for evidence of paralysis.
Diagnosis can help determine the cause and extent of paralysis injuries. Treatment, however, is a much more difficult endeavor. There is no effective way to reverse damage to the spinal cord, but new treatments are continually tested. Possible treatment of paralysis and its symptoms might include:
- Preventing shock after an accident
- Reducing complications of paralysis symptoms
- Rehabilitation that may recover sensation and motor control
- Surgery and medicines to help with spinal cord injuries
- Adaptations for daily living with paralysis
Why Paralysis Is a Catastrophic Injury
Paralysis fits squarely within the definition of a catastrophic injury in the length of time it affects a person’s life. Even a temporary and isolated paralysis injury impacts a person in significant ways. For example, many neck injury victims experience facial paralysis that lasts several weeks or months. This requires intensive treatment and results in trouble eating or swallowing along with many other symptoms. While medical treatment may recover most or all of the sensation, this time spent with a paralysis injury is still catastrophic.
Paralysis is also considered a catastrophic injury because of the severity of the symptoms, which can include:
- Numbness in affected muscles or tissue
- Stiffness
- Involuntary twitches or spasms
- Muscle atrophy, which is loss of muscle mass
- Inability to move or control portions of the body
- Loss of bowel control
- Loss of sexual function
- Inability to breathe without assistance
Many of these symptoms will alter a person’s life forever. They may be unable to care for themselves or their family. It can also mean the person must find a new profession or is unable to work at all. All of these issues further prove how catastrophic a paralysis injury can be.
Emotional Consequences of a Paralysis Injury
Physical issues are not all that make a paralysis injury catastrophic. The emotional consequences can be just as devastating. These may include:
- Depression
- Vehophobia, fear of driving after an accident
- Anxiety and panic attacks
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Suicidal thoughts or attempts
Financial Consequences of a Paralysis Injury
Paralysis will also lead to a significant impact on a person’s finances, affecting not only their life but their family’s as well. These financial impacts are another reason that paralysis is considered a catastrophic injury. They may include:
- Loss of income or future earning ability
- High surgical and other medical expenses
- Costs of long-term rehabilitation
- Costs of accommodating a new disability
- Costs of treating future paralysis complications
- Property damages related to the original accident
Moving Forward After a Catastrophic Paralysis Injury
Paralysis injuries are some of the most catastrophic harms a person can face after an accident. Injured parties have options for recovering compensation. A personal injury lawsuit may help win monetary damages for everything the injured victim has been through.
