Over 24K Traumatic Brain Injury Cases Were Improperly Treated by Veteran Affairs
Traumatic Brain Injury Cases Go Misdiagnosed by U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has revealed that over 24,000 veterans were improperly treated for traumatic brain injury (TBI) by unqualified personnel.
In a letter sent to U.S. military veterans earlier this year, the VA states that vets were improperly treated at clinics in 58 cities, including Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Philadelphia. Vets have up to one year after receipt of the VA’s letter to receive another exam by a certified VA specialist.
Traumatic brain injury is a result of sudden or violent impact or trauma that affects the brain. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, symptoms of TBI include the following:
- problems with cognition (thinking, memory, and reasoning)
- sensory processing (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell)
- communication (expression and understanding)
- behavior or mental health (depression, anxiety, personality changes, aggression, acting out, and social inappropriateness)
“Military service members are increasingly deployed to areas where they are at risk for experiencing blast exposures from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombers, land mines, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades,” writes The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) on its website. “These and other combat related activities put our military service members at increased risk for sustaining a TBI.”
Recovery and coping tips are offered by DVBIC in this pamphlet.
The experienced personal injury lawyers at Pribanic & Pribanic have a history of winning cases involving Veterans Affairs. The process for handling a VA malpractice claim is markedly different from a standard malpractice claim, and medical advisors at Pribanic & Pribanic are available to assess your case.
If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury related to activities conducted during military service, call for a free consultation at toll free 1-800-392-4529.
“What is a Medical Malpractice Lawyer?”
‘Lawyer of the Year’ Victor Pribanic answers questions about Medical Malpractice in this exclusive interview.
MT: What information do you need for the free, initial consultation?
Victor: “We’ll need general background information, the event or events that the patient or family thinks were result of negligence or mistakes. We need to know the type of injury and timeline for treatment. Sometimes patients have only vague recollections, but we can gather a lot from medical records. We’ll then have experts and in-house staff with medical training review the records and see if the doctor or hospital was guilty of negligence that harmed the patient.”
