Cerebral palsy refers to a group of movement disorders affecting mobility and leading to mental and physical difficulties.
Damage to the brain shortly before, during, or after delivery can decrease the brain’s ability to control muscles and nerves resulting in cerebral palsy.
Since the condition involves various body parts, the presenting symptoms differ in severity. Moreover, the symptoms of cerebral palsy do not deteriorate or improve with age, although complications resulting from the condition lead to further health problems in the child.
What is the cause of cerebral palsy?
There are different reasons for cerebral palsy in babies. Damage to any part of the brain can occur due to viral infections, head injuries, or trauma. Likewise, premature delivery can also trigger complications and injure the baby’s brain. However, the primary cause of cerebral palsy is brain injury due to medical negligence during the delivery.
Why do you need a cerebral palsy lawyer?
Doctors and nurses have a responsibility to you and your baby. They must be alert and prepared for all potential challenges during delivery to guarantee a safe birth. When medical staff is careless and non-serious, they fail to fulfill the standard level of care, putting your baby at risk before and during childbirth. If your baby sustains an injury during delivery because of medical malpractice, which results in cerebral palsy, you need to consider hiring a cerebral palsy attorney.
Doctors and nurses should monitor the baby’s heartbeat and vital signs throughout delivery, so they can recognize the slightest discrepancy and address it right away. Failure to do so causes hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, a condition in which the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the brain decreases drastically, leading to brain injury.
Cerebral palsy stemming from brain injury persists for life. The baby will forever be dependent on medicines and helpers and will face numerous challenges in the future. Hiring a skilled and experienced cerebral palsy attorney will help you, and your family acquires the justice and financial compensation they deserve because medical aid can be quite expensive.
A cerebral palsy attorney is a sub-category of lawyers dealing with personal injury. Approaching a cerebral palsy attorney after your baby’s diagnosis is the best action for you because these lawyers enable families to take legal action and demand financial support to provide for their child’s medical expenses.
How can a cerebral palsy lawyer help?
There are many advantages to seeking the help of a cerebral palsy lawyer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that the average expense of providing complete medical care for a patient with cerebral palsy amounts to more than $1 million. That is a hefty sum for a middle-class family to manage. Cerebral palsy attorneys understand this unfairness and work to ensure that your family receives complete financial support to cover your child’s treatment and guarantee they get the standard of care they deserve.
1. Lifecare Plans
A cerebral palsy attorney takes steps to enable your baby to face future challenges. One of the best ways of doing so is by making life care plans. Such a plan lists the facilities your baby will require to live a comfortable life.
The attorney employs a certified life care planner to examine all parts of your baby’s life, and account for medical treatment, home renovations that will make life easier for your baby, transportation, etc. The attorney and life care planner will factor in all these needs and draft a report asking for compensation.
The attorney will add this information to the damages part of the baby’s claim. Successfully getting damages payment from the authorities is the most crucial reason why you should hire a cerebral palsy attorney.
2. Lifetime Benefits
A cerebral palsy attorney will also help you get Lifetime Benefits in which the authorities allocate appropriate funds in a trust. The purpose of this trust is to assist your child in overcoming problems associated with cerebral palsy. These funds specifically aim to help surmount challenges your child will face because of his condition and lessen problems in any way possible.
Lifetime Benefits can facilitate your child in the following ways.
- Give them adapted vehicles/vehicle modifications to make transport easier.
- The ease of physical, emotional, and occupational therapy helps your child adjust to his surrounding at every stage of life.
- Surgery
- Medications to manage symptoms.
- Provide mobility aids to help your child move easily and reduce dependence on others for the smallest things.
- Assistive devices
- Compensation for lost wages if you had to leave your job and tend to your child full time.
Conclusion
Ultimately, whether you should opt for a cerebral palsy attorney is a judgment call you have to make for your entire family. A cerebral palsy lawyer has vast knowledge and prior experience to guide you in the best possible way.
They will also have access to the most renowned medical experts with the best understanding of brain injuries. These medical experts will be able to facilitate you in caring for your child in the most suitable manner.
Meanwhile, your cerebral palsy lawyers will collect all the essential information about your child’s injury, including medical and electronic fetal monitoring records. They will then file your lawsuit and bear the stress of the entire process so you can concentrate on tending to your child.
