Southeast TX accident victims: a head injury can haunt you for years

No matter how mild or severe your head injury after a Texas accident, researchers have recently found that any head injury can affect your chances of survival for up to 13 years. This surprising discovery was made when researchers in Scotland tracked the progress of 2,000 people.

Of these individuals, 757 were treated in a Glasgow hospital between 1995 and 1996 for a head injury. The remaining individuals were a mix of patients who had visited the hospital for other reasons during that time, and healthy individuals from the nearby community.

After 13 years, 40 percent of the head injury victims were dead, while only 28 percent of those admitted to the hospital for other reasons were dead, compared with 19 percent of those in the surrounding community.

These results were surprising to researchers. Typically head injuries contribute to death within the first year after the injury. After this time passes, many people assume that associated risks have passed. However, in reality researchers discovered that head injury victims were more likely to die from circulatory, respiratory, psychiatric, digestive and other external causes than others in their community.

Being young, researchers found, is no protection against this phenomenon. Young and middle-aged head injury victims were more likely to die within 13 years after their injury than elderly victims. In fact, individuals aged 15 to 54 were more than six times as likely to die compared to those with no head injury.

Why would a Texas personal injury attorney want to share this information? Many times accident victims settle quickly after an accident that was not their fault - and quick settlements are often small settlements. A skilled brain injury attorney can help you take your future into account when requesting a fair settlement, which will help you protect your family if the worst should happen.