Brain Injury literature

I have noticed an add on my blog that has some useful information for any brain injury survivor. The link is TBI Brain Injury Rehab. I'm not sure how long the ad will be posted, so I will include the link in this posting:

http://www.nrio.com/

I do not know this organization, so cannot comment on how effective it is. However, if you click on "resources", you will find some great information.

Something that is always a complicating factor with brain injuries is the effect on personality and cognitive abilities. Most people know that psychiatric conditions can have an impact on both these areas.

As a survivors advocate, it is important to determine whether the change is a brain injury - organic and not likely to improve...or a psychiatric condition that may improve with treatment. This allows us to get the best treatment for our client to restore his or her life. Further, if the change is psychiatric, we need to determine whether the trauma was a "material contributing factor" in the onset of the condition. That is essentially a legalism for "Was the the accident a serious factor causing the condition.

If this is a topic that interests you, then I encourage my readers...if there are any, to look at the website.

Pacific Coast Brain Injury Conference (day 2)

The second day of the conference was great. I attended a lively session on "Capacity". Interestingly, the presenter, a well known vancouver lawyer, delivered a rather technical presentation on various sections of legislation impacting rights of individuals. However, the audience, that had many brain injury survivors and family members, had very real questions.
These questions really highlighted the strength of this conference because it puts everyone in the same room, which can be a catalyst for change:

* service providers
* survivors and family members
* lawyers
* specialists
* researchers
* advocates

At the conference I met two fabulous people, an Educational Consultant and a woman who is a mother of a child with a brain injury who is a tremendous advocate. I hope to maintain a relationship with these two individuals because they have the ability to make positive changes for my clients. They are also wonderful, energetic people who I have lots to learn from.

I was talking to a physio therapist from Ontario who commented that she sees lawyers as a key element in a patients rehabilitation team. It warms my heart to hear that as many people in the medical field, typically family doctors, have substantial resentment towards lawyers (I suppose it isn't surprising considering the general attitude towards lawyers).

I entirely agree that we, lawyers acting for victims of car accidents, can be a strong asset in the rehabilitation of the client. If a doctor, chiropractor, physiotherapist, Occupational therapist calls me, I put everything aside an talk to them. Typically, they are seeking funding for some program and the lines of communication are down with the clients first party insurer. However, I often pay for a medical legal report from a specialist or get an MRI out of my own pocket (or rather my firm's trust account) just to get a diagnosis and get it into the hands of the family doctor or care providers.

I firmly believe that we as lawyers have to do a better job convincing doctors that our goal as our client's advocate is to minimize his or her losses (yes document them and collect evidence of his or her deficits).

It seems obvious really! Clients will be happier with their life and with us if we can help in any way to minimize the harm. So our first goal to help the client build a better life. It is too bad that these lines of communication between lawyers and many health care providers are broken.

I have no delusions that I can change the attitute generally, but hopefully if I maintain a committment towards building a better life for my clients then some doctors may change their attitude toward me personally.

Anyone who knows someone with a brain injury should consider visiting the conference website:

www.pcbic.org

Pacific Coast Brain Injury Conference

The Pacific Coast Brain Injury Conference is this weekend. It's one of the premiere brain injury conferences in the country. I am amazed at how diverse the audience is. I met a brain survivor from New Brunswick, health care providers from Ontario, service providers from the Okanagan and Seattle and a few other lawyers.

It seems that Ontario brain injury survivors are having a tough time. The province went to "no fault" insurance, but it seems to have created more problems for victims and only benefited the insurance companies (I don't mean to rant). An OT (occupational therapist) I talked with today said that she ALWAYS advises patients to get a lawyer involved early on. She said that more and more service providers are recognizing that lawyers are an important part of the recovery process because survivors have difficulty getting insurance companies to live up to their obligations.

www.simpsonthomas.com

Getting Started

Well, after re-branding our law firm and designing a website for it.  I decided to start my own blog. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do here, but my initial thoughts are to give a few comments on the law here for people involved in car accidents in BC.

I might also talk about some of my key professional interests. Right now I am working on a number of really sad cases where children have been struck by cars as pedestrians and have suffered brain injuries as a result of the collision. I'm not sure why this strikes such a cord with me. Perhaps it is because the child will never know who he or she could have become. Perhaps it is because it is shocking how poorly the medical and school systems deal with children with brain injuries.

Anyhow, these are my initial thoughts. We'll have to see what this blog becomes.