Testing Memory and Focus After a Head Impact
A scan can look normal while a person still struggles with memory, concentration, and mood. Etemi Law’s traumatic brain injury page identifies neuropsychological testing as one way to measure those problems. The testing can matter in a claim because it provides objective evidence of how the brain is working.
Scans Can Miss Mild Injuries
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains in its overview of traumatic brain injury that brain changes can affect how a person thinks, learns, feels, acts, and sleeps. It adds that most traumatic brain injuries are mild injuries or concussions and that the effects of a mild injury can still be serious.
The firm’s traumatic brain injury page says a CT scan is used to look for bleeding, fractures, and swelling but can miss mild and moderate injuries, while an MRI is more sensitive. A Waterbury brain injury lawyer reads the imaging reports together with the symptom history, since a normal CT does not rule out an injury.
What Neuropsychological Testing Measures
According to the firm’s page, neuropsychological testing assesses:
- Memory.
- Attention.
- Executive function.
- Processing speed.
- Emotional regulation.
Each of these functions shows up in daily life, from remembering appointments to staying on task at work and keeping emotions steady at home. These tests are one part of the diagnostic work described on the firm’s Waterbury traumatic brain injury page, which also covers moderate and severe injuries such as bleeding in the skull and diffuse axonal injury.
The CDC adds that providers may test learning, memory, concentration, and problem-solving. Symptoms of a mild injury can appear hours or days after the impact, so the timing of the first evaluation can matter.
Testing Supports the Medical Record
Etemi Law describes neuropsychological testing as among the most compelling objective evidence in these claims. That matters because insurers may argue that symptoms are exaggerated, that imaging was normal, that an injury was already present, or that the crash was too minor to cause harm.
The article on cognitive fatigue after a motorcycle wreck stresses consistent medical records, and testing results add a measured baseline to those records.
A Waterbury brain injury lawyer can help a client see how the test results, the treatment notes, and the daily symptoms fit together. A baseline matters because a claim has to answer whether the symptoms come from the collision or from something earlier.
Lasting Effects Carry Costs
A brain injury can lead to cognitive impairment, lost earning capacity, and a lower quality of daily life, all of which the firm lists among the damages it pursues. Each of those losses has to be tied back to the injury, which is where the medical record does its work. The piece on the hidden costs of mTBIs lists neurological evaluations as one expense and describes the cognitive difficulties that can follow a mild injury.
Placing a dollar amount on these losses can require medical testimony about the course of the injury, which is another reason the records and test results need to line up.
The same page names car crashes among the causes of head injuries. A driver or passenger who develops memory or focus problems after a collision may start with the firm’s Waterbury car accident practice, which handles the crash claim alongside the injury.
Falls are named as well, and a head injury from a fall on unsafe property is handled as a Waterbury slip and fall claim, where the same testing and records apply.
The Attorneys Behind the Firm
Etemi Law Injury Lawyers was founded by Ron Etemi, who graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2010 and has completed trial training through the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College. Lou Etemi, a partner, is a member of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association and the Waterbury Bar Association.
Because symptoms can surface days after an impact, a Waterbury resident with lingering memory or focus problems after a crash or fall can reach out to the firm to talk through testing and the records that support it.