When a person suffers a serious accident, impact, fall, violence, or sports injury, a traumatic brain injury can result. A traumatic brain injury is a permanent injury that affects the cognitive functions of a person. Concussions, contusions, and shaking injuries (known as diffuse axonal injury) are all types of traumatic brain injuries.

When someone suffers a brain injury, speech, thought processes, emotional behavior, physical abilities and other areas of the body can become impaired. The effects of this type of injury can strain a family emotionally and financially, so it is important to make sure that the injured person gets treatment.


Brain injuries are not the easiest problem to diagnose and may not be apparent immediately following the accident. The reason for this is that a brain injury is not a "visible injury." Many treating physicians do not discover the brain injury initially because they are focused on treating pain symptoms or because the patient does not relay to the treating physician that they are having cognitive functioning problems. This is one reason that early settlement with an insurance company is a bad idea: the victim might not know of all of their injuries until several months after the accident.

Many brain injuries are initially discovered by family, friends, or co-workers. When an injury victim starts to become irritable, emotional, or has problems with everyday functions that used to be easy for them, it is important to report these problems to a treating physician.


Having an experienced attorney makes a big difference when an accident victim has suffered a brain injury. When you initially meet with an attorney from Rist Law Offices, we will ask brain injury specific questions in order to insure that we know the whole medical picture. We not only gather information from the injury victim, but also from family members and, if necessary, co-workers and friends. The reason we do this is simple: we know that a brain injury can result in substantial medical costs that are an important part of a case. The injury can also cause substantial problems at work that can lead to reduced wages or the loss of a job. These losses are all components of a personal injury case that must be reviewed prior to settlement.

Brain injury patients who have suffered permanent injuries can work with experts to learn to compensate for the lost functioning of the brain. This treatment can be costly and emotionally frustrating. The last thing that someone who is working to compensate for a serious injury needs to worry about is how to pay for the cost of the services.


We offer free initial consultations to all injury victims. We handle cases throughout the state of West Virginia and will schedule a free initial consultation anywhere in the state for free. Call us at 1-866-982-5299 to get help with your case today.