What Bodily Changes Can a Victim Expect After a Spinal Cord Injury?
September 8, 2022 Posted In Personal Injury
A spinal cord injury is one of the most traumatic types of injuries a person can experience. If someone you know suffers a spinal injury as a result of an accident that wasn’t their fault, it’s important to get help right away and to start building your case so that you can go after the compensation you or your loved one deserves. Many times a spinal cord injury is a lifelong injury that comes with a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. While compensation won’t take away the injury, it can ease the suffering.
How The Body Changes After a Spinal Cord Injury
There are many ways that the body can change due to a spinal cord injury. The key factors that determine how the body changes are the type of spinal cord injury and the position of the injury. For the purpose of explaining the types of changes, we will divide them into mild, moderate, and severe changes.
Mild Changes
Mild changes occur when the spine is impacted in a non permanent way. This can happen due to mild to moderate impacts to the spine that don’t result in nerve compression but still cause some kind of harm.
Things like a sudden stop in an automobile, low speed contact with an object, etc can cause mild injury which can change how the body is able to perform. You may experience a limited range of movement when bending or twisting, soreness, muscle weakness, and pain when lifting or stretching.
These types of changes are usually temporary but can impact your quality of life while they are happening.
Moderate Changes
Moderate changes to the body occur when you have a more severe spinal cord injury but not a complete spinal cord injury. These types of changes are a result of persistent ongoing damage to the spine such as narrowing in the space between the discs, herniated or bulging discs, a pinched nerve and other problems. These types of injuries are almost always caused by some type of accident that results in impacts to the spine.
Pain can be much more severe and radiate outward from the site of the injury. You can experience prolonged weakness and loss of movement. You may even experience temporary or intermittent paralysis in parts of the body below the affected area of the spine. While not completely debilitating, the nerve damage in particular can be life long and can cause chronic health issues.
Severe Changes
Severe bodily changes occur when the spinal cord is damaged in such a way that is irreversible. Major car accidents, slip and falls that impact the head and neck, and other similar accidents tend to cause these types of injuries.
When we talk about severe changes to the body, we are referring to full blown paralysis in two or more limbs, the potential for blood clots, seizures, even death is possible if the spinal cord injury is severe enough and in the right spot. Damage to the cervical spine in particular is incredibly severe. This can result in full body paralysis, cardio pulmonary issues, and a major, permanent reduction in quality of life.
If you are in an accident that results in a spinal cord injury, regardless of how severe, it’s important to first seek medical attention, and then contact a San Bernardino spinal cord injury attorney to see what kinds of compensation you may be eligible for.