Auto accident injuries are unparalleled, and how they affect you is also unique. The term ‘general’ does not comply with these types of injuries. The medical treatment for auto accident injuries is a specialized area that regards all the auto accident injuries at their own merits. The trauma and shock of an accident can impair your thinking. The boost of adrenaline within your body can distract your attention away from the injuries the accident might have caused.
The importance of seeking medical care right after a motor vehicle accident cannot be understated even if there are no immediate signs of discomfort. Accidents can cause internal injuries within your body that might show signs later on. This oversight could compound your suffering and cause your treatment to be more complex. The first 72 hours are critical as the swelling from a whiplash reaches its peak after three days of sustenance. Suppose medical treatment for auto accident injuries is not sought within the first 72 hours. In that case, the muscle tissues can be scarred permanently, making the treatment more difficult and increasing the risk of future re-injuries. Also, claiming a settlement gets difficult as non-reporting of an injury within the first 72 hours makes it harder to prove that the accident was the cause of the injury.
It is estimated that each year, 1 percent of the population of the United States suffers from some form of a vehicle accident. They are also the number one cause of the male population experiencing trauma and the second most common for the female population. Many people do not seek medical care right away. Some of those who do, go to their family doctors or general physicians. However, general practitioners are not the best Doctors for auto accident injuries as they do not specialize in this field.
The Most Common Auto Accident Injuries
Each injury type is unique, and each injury resulting from the same crash can also be unique. So are the bodies of all individuals and the way they react to treatments. All this calls for therapies and treatments that best suit and are most appropriate to your specific needs. The most common injuries that occur from motor vehicle accidents are:
Internal Injuries
Flying debris from an accident or the impact of your body colliding with a hard object can cause injuries within your body. Such injuries are not visible from the outside but can cause severe damage if left untreated. Internal bleeding can be caused by these injuries and need to be stopped as soon as possible.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
The shock can cause emotional and mental injuries along with physical ones. PTSD is ubiquitous and makes the victims less able to cope by causing daily and routine tasks to seem complicated. The disorder renders the sufferers vulnerable to more anxiety and depression from things that used to be not a big deal before the accident.
Neck Injuries
An impact in the neck, even at slow car speeds, is critical. The blows can cause severe disk injuries or cervical dislocation. If the treatment is delayed for a neck injury, the pain in the neck can persist for a long time.
Crush Injuries
Crush injuries can be lacerations and minor bruising to bone fractures. When a body part sustains, pressure between two objects colliding with each other, muscles, tendons, ligaments, tissues, or organs can get ruptured, causing severe and long-term pain.
Whiplash
Whiplashes are very common as actual speeds as low as 15 mph can cause them. It is when your soft tissues are damaged due to impacting your muscles, tendons, or ligaments. Whiplashes can occur even if you are wearing a seatbelt.
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs)
1.5 million people in the United States suffer traumatic brain injuries each year. Fifty thousand of them die, and 230,000 get hospitalized before getting well. 80,000 to 90,000 of them sustain long-term disabilities. These vast numbers indicate how common this type of injury is. It is caused by a solid blow to the head or an object piercing through the skull.
Ankle and Foot Injuries
Fractures, strains, and sprains in feet, ankles, and toes can occur in motor vehicle accidents. Crushing and severing of feet and toes are also common occurrences.
Fractures
Virtually any bone in the body can get fractured from an auto accident, but the most common are the ones in ankles, ribs, legs, arms, and wrists. The breaking of bones can be severe (compound fractures) that require surgery or simple that repair from casting.
Bruises
Bruises can be painful and sometimes severe. Road-rashes are a result of friction produced when your skin drags against concrete or pavement. Lacerations and bruises can occur through an impact to your skin by a torn metal (and other hard materials) sheet, broken glass, or a flying object.
Wrists and Hand Injuries
Crushing, breaking, and dismembering of fingers, hands, and wrists are common auto accident injuries. Distal radius fractures require surgeries more often than not.
Shoulder Injuries
Shoulders lock their positions and absorb the impact from the hands placed on the steering wheel or dashboard. The force is usually more than the shoulder can take and gets dislocated.
Knee Injuries
Abrupt twisting and turning of the knee can cause the cartilage or meniscus within it to tear. Bruises, kneecap fractures, and dislocations of knees are most common.
Disfigurement and Amputation
Lasting scars and facial or organ disfigurements are common as impacts with airbags, windshields, side windows, steering wheels, car seats, or dashboards can be severe. Loss of arms, legs, or other appendages has lasting and permanent disabling effects on the victims. Such injuries might require correction surgeries or amputation.
Spinal Cord injuries
Back injuries can be critical and very painful as our backs home spinal cords. Disk displacement or fracture in a spinal cord can result in partial or total paralysis. Back injuries can be late to show and can cause long-term discomfort.
Burns
Hot chemicals, steam, and fluids might leak after a car accident, and the vehicle can also catch fire. If your skin comes in contact with these things, it can get burnt. Severe burns might require skin grafting or surgery.
Seeking Medical Care
As soon as you are involved in an auto accident, you need to seek medical help. Most people would go to their primary general physicians to get checked, which can be the single biggest mistake they make. General practitioners neither have the experience nor the equipment to deal with auto accident injuries effectively. If your incurred physical, emotional, and mental damages do not receive the proper treatment they require straight away, your condition and injuries can worsen and get complex. Another drawback of going to a general physician for treatment after a motor vehicle accident is that they cannot bill the insurance companies.
Personal injury attorneys like Anh Phoong in the Bay Area and Sacramento, California, have a network of expert and experienced doctors specializing in auto accident injuries and the victims of motor vehicle accidents. They have the equipment and know the procedures and processes of performing correct diagnoses, therapies, and treatments on the sufferers. They cater to the uniqueness of your injuries. They carefully apply the medical care that is most appropriate to your case. They are also entirely set up to bill the insurance company and look to settle all the medical expenditures from the insurer. A personal injury lawyer’s network of professional doctors takes and treats the victims of auto accidents as an emergency and urgent case and can minimize the damage resulting from the injuries.
Additionally, a personal injury lawyer can get you the settlement you deserve and need for your recovery. Studies show that people who hire a personal injury lawyer after accidents get 3.5 times more money as settlements than people who do not. A personal injury lawyer knows better than letting you accept a low payout offer and has the experience and tactics to get you money for physical injuries and mental and emotional pain and suffering. Remember, the insurance companies do not want you to hire attorneys as more payout is terrible for their business.
If you are in Sacramento or the Bay Area, California, you can contact Anh Phoong for expert injury attorney services. She will instantly set you up with the best medical care in your area and take care of all your case’s litigation and documentation processes to get you a high financial settlement.
Types of Specialized Doctors
As mentioned earlier, specialized doctors who treat auto accident injuries are the appropriate kind of medical care you need after an accident. An excellent personal injury lawyer has a network of doctors they can hook you up with depending on the severity and the type of injuries you inflict. These doctors include:
Medical Specialists
Some injuries require treatment from medical specialists who treat specific kinds of body organs and parts. They have the in-depth knowledge and expertise to diagnose and treat particular injuries that general physicians know only the basics of.
Emergency Room Doctors
Life-threatening or severe injuries call for emergency treatments, and some doctors are experienced and specialized in this area. A persistent loss of blood, internal injuries, and blows to the head require you to go to emergency room doctors that are available 24/7.
Urgent Care Doctors
Urgent care doctors usually examine you without appointments. They are your go-to practitioners if your injuries are not life-threatening. They examine you thoroughly to diagnose and treat the injuries.
Types of Specialized Treatments
Medical doctors, specialized in auto accident injuries that a personal injury lawyer can urgently set you up with, perform several treatments and medical procedures depending on your injuries to bring you back to everyday life. Some of them are:
Phonophoresis and Therapeutic Ultrasound
Phonophoresis is a medical procedure that enhances the delivery of topically applied medications using ultrasound. High-frequency sound waves can reduce swelling, decrease pain, and stimulate tissue to increase the blood flow of a specific area, resulting in quicker healing.
Conditioning and Strengthening
After battling with motor vehicle injuries, your body can tire out, and your mind can get numb. Physical and mental exercises and conditioning therapies can get you back to everyday and complete life.
Physiotherapy
Most auto accident cases render your body or specific parts of it requiring physiotherapy. A therapeutic plan that is specific to your needs can effectively aid your complete recovery.
Medication
The medical issues arising from your injury might require medication treatment. Expert and specialized doctors prescribe the most appropriate and necessary medication needed for your full recovery.
Braces and Splints
Fractures, sprains, and strains might require casting, splints, or braces. Familiarity with auto accident cases and injuries allows medical professionals to apply expert techniques for splinting and bracing.
Traction
Traction is a process of relieving pressure, particularly in the spine, and straightening broken bones. It is required and advisable in some specific injury cases.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapies are conducted in state-of-the-art gyms by licensed physical therapists to improve the range of flexibility and motion, restore movements, and relieve pain. It includes a customized plan involving exercises to build muscle, stamina and enhance cardiac activity. It helps and supports your recovery to a normal life.
Muscle Stimulation
Massage therapies can relax your muscles, improve blood circulation, and loosen soft tissue. Electrical impulses aid in eliciting muscle contraction, preventing muscle atrophy, “re-educating” muscles, and relaxing spasms.
Fascia is the elastic and tough connective tissue that wraps bodily structures and muscles. Myofascial release is used to help relax it and stimulate its stretch reflexes.
Auto accident injuries can be a turning point in your life, leaving you vulnerable to life-long medical issues and disabilities. Timely and proper medical care is essential to save yourself from the potential complexities of inappropriately treated injuries.
Personal injury lawyers are experienced in working on accident injury cases and have a strong network of top medical personnel specializing in treating auto accident injuries and bringing the victims back to their everyday lives. From getting you the best medical care to taking care of all the legal hassles by recovering a reasonable amount for your accident injury settlement, our personal injury lawyer at Phoong Law deals with it all. Anh Phoong is a highly experienced and expert personal injury lawyer who covers the Bay Area, and Sacramento region.
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