If a recent car accident, work accident, or other catastrophic event has left you with a debilitating spinal cord injury, you may feel overwhelmed with your new reality. A spinal cord injury can make it seem as if you will never achieve your goals.
Nevertheless, you still have much to live for and many opportunities to participate fully in your life. As you progress with your recovery, you will learn many new ways to compensate for the mobility you have lost, which may increase your quality of life. In fact, doctors will be interested in seeing how your quality of life improves as your care progresses.
What affects your quality of life?
Doctors use several methods of determining the quality of life of someone who has suffered a spinal cord injury. By measuring this seemingly intangible factor, doctors and other professionals can help you obtain the highest level of health and happiness possible. Even if measurements soon after your accident show that your quality of life is poor, it is true that victims of spinal cord injuries often have an increase in their quality of life as they learn how to adapt to their limitations.
Some factors that may help raise your quality of life include the following:
Finding ways to improve your mobility and independence
Achieving an advanced education
Maintaining good health aside from your injury, such as reducing the chances of complications like infection, pain, or bladder and bowel disfunction
Having strong support from your family, friends and other relationships
Financial stress is a common factor that can keep a victim of a spinal cord injury from achieving a high quality of life. Unfortunately, spinal cord injuries can result in astronomical medical bills that mount for the duration of the injured person’s life. The younger you were when the accident occurred, the longer you may require medical treatment, surgeries, therapy and other medical care. It is not unusual for families to spend nearly $5 million on care for a loved one with a spinal cord injury.
If your quality of life is diminished because someone else’s negligence, reckless behavior or intentional actions resulted in your spinal cord injury, you know that nothing can turn back the clock to right this terrible wrong. However, by taking the matter to Louisiana civil court, you may be able to win compensation that can assist your family in obtaining the care and treatment you deserve for a full and happy life.
