Florida Injury Lawyer Blog
In the United States, about 12,000 people each year suffer serious spinal cord injuries. In Florida and in Homestead, slip and fall accidents, sports injuries, violence, and traffic collisions tend to cause the most spinal cord injuries, although these injuries can result from other causes as well. Young men tend to have the highest rates of this type of injury.
For spinal cord injury patients in Homestead and Florida, the road to recovery is often challenging, painful, and expensive. Patients with this type of injury often need rehabilitation, pain management solutions, surgery, and other treatment. Traditionally, patients with some kinds of spinal cord trauma have not been able to recover full mobility but each year new research has uncovered exciting new options for patients. In addition to helping patients recover mobility, some research has been focused on improving quality of life for spinal injury patients.
A new upcoming research study by St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute and Washington State University Spokane will examine whether multi-family group treatment would help improve quality of life for patients who have sustained spinal cord trauma. Multi-family group treatment is often used to treat schizophrenia and other conditions. However, researchers were curious whether the treatment option would also help with the emotional trauma faced by spinal cord injury patients and their caregivers and families.
As part of the study, 32 patients and their caregivers will be either given general information about spinal cord injury support or will be given multi-family group treatment, which includes coping strategies, support, and customized education. Both groups will be studied for six months to see how quality of life, engagement in treatment, relationships, and physical and emotional health fare after the treatments. Researchers believe that multi-family group treatment will help spinal trauma patients, especially those patients with a more recent injury.
Another study, from Imperial College London, has found that genetic therapy can help patients by repairing the spinal cord. Researchers are optimistic that gene therapy could eventually be used to repair nerve damage for both brain injury patients and spinal cord injury patients. The study isolated a protein that was important for the regrowth of nerves. The protein, P300/CBP-associated factor (PCAF), improved the number of nerve fibers that regrew in mice with spinal cord trauma when it was injected into the mice.
Although these treatment options may only be available in the future, the current options for patients with spinal related personal injury in Homestead or Florida tends to focus on rehabilitation and on dealing with symptoms. In these cases, it is important to secure fair compensation and financial resources in order to increase the likelihood that a patient will be able to afford quality medical care. Unfortunately, spinal cord injury treatment in Florida tends to be very expensive. In many cases, victims who have been injured in a traffic accident in Homestead or another city or have sustained a spinal cord injury in another way seek the help of a personal injury attorney in their community in order to launch a legal claim or in order to seek compensation so that they can afford quality medical care.
If you have suffered a spinal cord injury, it is important to look ahead. You may be able to recover some of your mobility or even make a full recovery, but you need to consider the total cost of your injuries. The attorneys at Flaxman Law Group can meet with you for a free case assessment in order to review your legal options.