The Mental Cost of Major Injury

Accident injuries are scary. Torn tissue, blood, and broken bones bring instant compassion and well deserved sympathy. Recovering from the physical effects of a major accident can take a long time—indeed, a lifetime. Jurors and even insurance claim representatives can see the physical scars and injuries in person or in photographs, radiographs, and other imaging. People readily understand the challenge of things like surgeries, screws and pins, hard and soft casts, and wheelchairs or crutches.

Yet, the mental costs of injury are often more significant than the physical effects. Injury victims will tell you: they can struggle and deal with the obvious physical stuff, but it’s the hidden mental stuff that gets you. Making the invisible mental toll apparent while helping clients get needed mental health diagnoses and treatment, is where the skilled representation of a McCraw Law Group lawyer makes the difference. We know how to document and prove the full value of a negligence claim for major injury, including the hidden mental costs while helping clients recover with appropriate mental health care.

Types of Mental Impacts

Medical care providers treating victims of serious-injury accidents tend to focus on the apparent physical injuries. Their primary concern is that the accident victim survives. And so they perform surgeries to repair torn tissues and stop internal bleeding, set bones with pins and casts, suture wounds, and order medical equipment and physical therapy. They’ve done their job as long as the accident victim stabilizes and appears to physically recover.

But the treatment of the traumatic physical impacts of a major accident does not diagnose, treat, and document the mental impacts. The Centers for Disease Control confirms that physical and mental health “are equally important components of overall health.” Accident victims often suffer significant undiagnosed mental trauma such as:

• Anxiety, nervousness, fear, fright, and shock;
• Irritability, frustration, and personality change;
• Acute, episodic, and chronic depression;
• Post-traumatic stress disorder;
• Flashbacks, nightmares, and sleeplessness; and
• Fatigue, lack of concentration, and memory loss.

Proving Mental Impacts

The insurance representatives who authorize payment of claims, and jurors who make injury awards, need to see the diagnosis and treatment of mental injury to fully appreciate and compensate for the mental costs of injury. The key to a full recovery is thus to ensure that the accident victim gets the mental health diagnosis and treatment that they need. The accident victim’s personal injury lawyer can then rely on those mental health experts to document and testify to the mental costs of injury.

The McCraw Law Group’s lawyers know who those specialist mental health treaters are. They also know how to help clients obtain a reliable, expert diagnosis of post-traumatic stress or other trauma-induced mental injury, following the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The McCraw Law Group can also help clients locate and obtain appropriate mental-health treatment for those mental injuries. Those mental health professionals who are key to recovery can include:

• Psychiatrists to diagnose mental injury and prescribe medication;
• Psychologists to diagnose impacts of mental injury and counsel recovery;
• Neuropsychologists to test for brain injury and recommend rehabilitation;
• Counselors and therapists to help the victim and family members adjust;
• Clinical social workers to arrange for compensatory assistance.

Get Qualified Legal Assistance

It may surprise some that it can take a qualified lawyer to ensure that an accident victim receives appropriate diagnosis and treatment for mental injury. But clients of the McCraw Law Group, and family members of clients, know how effective McCraw lawyers are in getting exactly that help, even as they use that assistance to document the full value of accident claims. Just call us any time of day or night, weekday or weekend, or go online, for a free consultation. Don’t let a hidden mental injury disrupt your life and diminish your claim.