Spinal cord injuries (SCIs) can drastically alter every aspect of your life, leaving you with long-term complications of spinal cord injury that extend far beyond the initial trauma.
When another party’s negligence causes these devastating injuries, you deserve full compensation for all losses—both immediate and future. Contact Mezrano Alabama Injury and Car Accident Lawyers in Tuscaloosa, AL, to schedule a free case evaluation with a skilled Tuscaloosa personal injury lawyer who understands the extensive complications of spinal cord injury long-term and will fight for maximum recovery.
Physical Long-Term Complications of Spinal Cord Injury
Spinal cord damage disrupts your body’s ability to function normally below the injury site. The severity determines which physical challenges you’ll face daily:
- Paralysis and Loss of Mobility: Paraplegia limits movement in the legs and lower body, whereas quadriplegia affects all four limbs and the torso, often requiring wheelchairs and other mobility aids for essential movement.
- Chronic Pain and Nerve Damage: Neuropathic pain originates from damaged nerve fibers themselves, creating burning, stabbing, or shooting sensations that standard pain medications often fail to relieve adequately.
- Respiratory Problems: Injuries to the cervical spine weaken or paralyze the diaphragm and intercostal muscles, forcing you to rely on ventilators or experience frequent pneumonia and breathing difficulties.
- Bladder and Bowel Dysfunction: You lose voluntary control over these essential functions, requiring catheterization schedules and bowel management programs that consume hours each day and increase infection risks.
- Sexual Dysfunction: Men and women both experience changes in sexual function, fertility concerns, and diminished sensation that affect intimate relationships and reproductive capabilities.
- Pressure Ulcers: Sitting or lying in one position creates painful sores that penetrate deep into tissue, potentially reaching bone and causing life-threatening infections if not prevented through constant repositioning.
- Spasticity and Muscle Atrophy: Muscles below the injury level experience involuntary spasms and contractions or waste away from disuse, limiting your range of motion and causing joint contractures.
- Blood Clots: Deep vein thrombosis forms in your legs due to immobility, and these clots can travel to your lungs, creating pulmonary embolisms that prove fatal.
- Autonomic Dysreflexia: Blood pressure spikes dangerously high in response to pain or discomfort below your injury level, potentially causing strokes or seizures without immediate intervention.
Psychological Long-Term Complications of Spinal Cord Injury
Adjusting to life following a spinal cord injury creates profound mental health challenges that require professional support. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), grief, and a loss of identity commonly develop as you process the permanence of your condition. Other complications:
- Depression: The reality of permanent disability triggers persistent sadness, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, changes in sleep patterns, and feelings of worthlessness that interfere with rehabilitation efforts.
- Anxiety and PTSD: You may relive the traumatic accident through nightmares and flashbacks while experiencing panic attacks about your vulnerability and future uncertainties.
- Cognitive Changes: Brain injuries accompanying spinal trauma or medication side effects can impair memory, concentration, decision-making abilities, and emotional regulation.
Social Life Complications
Your relationships and social connections transform significantly after a spinal cord injury. Friends and family members struggle to adjust to your new limitations while you face accessibility barriers everywhere:
- Relationship Strain: Marriages and partnerships endure enormous stress as roles shift, intimacy changes, and caregiving responsibilities create power imbalances that weren’t present before.
- Social Isolation: Physical barriers prevent you from accessing many buildings, events, and gatherings, while fatigue and transportation challenges keep you home more frequently.
- Loss of Independence: Relying on others for personal care tasks, like bathing, dressing, and toileting, erodes your privacy and sense of autonomy.
- Stigma and Discrimination: People stare, make assumptions about your capabilities, and treat you differently because of your wheelchair or visible disability.
- Family Burden: Your loved ones sacrifice their own careers, health, and personal time to provide the constant care you require, creating guilt and tension.
Professional Life Complications
Returning to work becomes impossible for many spinal cord injury survivors. Even if you can perform some job duties, you face significant obstacles in the workplace, such as:
- Career Change: You must retrain for entirely different occupations that accommodate your physical limitations, often accepting lower pay and reduced advancement opportunities.
- Workplace Accommodations: Employers must provide accessible workspaces, modified schedules, and adaptive equipment, but many businesses resist these changes or create hostile environments.
- Reduced Earning Capacity: Physical restrictions limit the hours you can work and the positions available to you, dramatically decreasing your lifetime earning potential.
- Benefits Loss: Disability benefits may not cover your actual living expenses, forcing difficult decisions about medical care versus necessities.
Negligent Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries
Many spinal cord injuries result from preventable accidents caused by someone else’s careless or reckless actions. Alabama law holds negligent parties accountable for the harm they cause:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle crashes
- Drunk driving accidents
- Slip and fall accidents
- Workplace incidents
- Medical malpractice
- Pedestrian accidents
- Sports and recreation mishaps
Under Alabama Code § 6-2-38, you generally have two years from your injury date to file a claim or personal injury lawsuit. Alabama Code § 6-5-410 permits wrongful death claims when spinal cord injuries prove fatal.
Compensation for Spinal Cord Injuries
Alabama law allows you to recover various types of damages when negligence causes your spinal cord injury. We pursue every available compensation category under state law:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Rehabilitation costs
- Mental health expenses
- Assistive devices and home modifications
- Lost wages and diminished earning capacity
- Property damages
- Household services
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of consortium
- Disability
- Wrongful death
At Mezrano Alabama Injury and Car Accident Lawyers, we gather medical records, expert testimony, and economic projections that demonstrate the full scope of your losses. You shouldn’t be responsible for bearing future costs due to long-term complications of spinal cord injury, and we make sure you don’t.
Speak to a Reputable Tuscaloosa Personal Injury Lawyer
Spinal cord injuries require substantial compensation that accounts for decades of future medical care, lost income, and reduced quality of life. Insurance companies will attempt to minimize your claim and pressure you into quick settlements that leave you financially devastated.
Our experienced legal team at Mezrano Alabama Injury and Car Accident Lawyers understands the true cost of these catastrophic injuries and fights aggressively for the maximum recovery you deserve. Call us or complete our online contact form to schedule a free case evaluation with an experienced Tuscaloosa personal injury lawyer today.
