Paralysis Lawyer

What Is Paralysis and What Are Its Symptoms?

Paralysis is a complex medical condition that affects a person’s ability to move or control certain muscles. It usually results from damage to the nervous system that disrupts the signals that travel between the brain and the muscles. It can come on gradually or suddenly, and what a person experiences depends on the part of the body that is affected.

Common symptoms include the inability to walk, loss of balance when standing, difficulty with fine motor skills such as buttoning a shirt, and the inability to bathe or handle other activities of daily living. Muscle tone may change, reflexes may become exaggerated, and people may feel numbness or become sensitive to pressure or temperature. Paralysis can also cause loss of bowel or bladder control, difficulty swallowing or breathing, and facial droop, drooling or dry eye. Some temporary conditions, such as Bell’s palsy, can improve over time, but there is currently no cure for permanent paralysis. Physical, occupational and speech therapy, and adaptive devices, can improve quality of life for many people living with it.

What Are the Types of Paralysis?

Doctors group paralysis by the part of the body that is affected, and by whether it is complete or partial. Monoplegia affects a single limb, such as one arm or one leg, and is often linked to a localized nerve or muscle injury, a stroke or a brain injury. Hemiplegia is paralysis of one side of the body, either the right or the left. It can start with a feeling of pins and needles and weakness, and can progress to a total loss of motor function on that side. In some people it is temporary.

Paraplegia is the loss of function in the lower half of the body, including the legs. Besides affecting the ability to walk, it can affect bladder, bowel and sexual function, and it is almost always permanent. Quadriplegia, also called tetraplegia, is the most extensive form. It affects the body from the neck down, including all four limbs and the torso, and it is usually permanent. Diplegia is the symmetrical paralysis of the same body parts on both sides of the body, usually the arms or the legs.

Paralysis can also be complete, with no movement or feeling in the affected area, or incomplete, with some movement or sensation remaining. How complete the paralysis is has a large effect on a person’s recovery, on the care they need, and on the value of an injury claim.

What Can Cause Paralysis Besides a Spinal Cord Injury?

Damage to the spinal cord is one cause of paralysis, but there are many others, which start in the brain or in the nerves and muscles. Stroke is the leading cause, and a stroke that is missed or treated late can lead to permanent paralysis. A traumatic brain injury from a crash, a fall or a blow can damage the areas of the brain that control movement. Autoimmune and neurological diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), can also cause paralysis. A tumor or infection that presses on the nerves, especially when the diagnosis is delayed, can cause it, and so can damage to nerves from trauma, surgery or injections.

Some of these causes are preventable. Medical mistakes are a notable example. A doctor who fails to diagnose a stroke in time, a surgeon whose error damages nerves, an anesthesiologist whose mistake cuts off blood flow to the brain or spine, or a hospital that fails to respond to warning signs can all cause paralysis that should never have happened. When that is the case, the injured person may have a claim. Paralysis caused by damage to the spine is covered on our spinal cord injury page.

What Does Lifetime Care for Paralysis Cost?

The effects of paralysis reach far beyond the loss of movement, affecting a person’s physical health, emotional well-being, work and finances. People with severe paralysis need specialized medical care and rehabilitation for the rest of their lives, and they often need changes to the home, such as ramps, wider doorways and accessible bathrooms, so that they can live as independently as possible.

The cost is very large. According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC), the estimated lifetime cost of a spinal injury for a 25-year-old with paraplegia is more than $2.6 million, and for a person of the same age with high tetraplegia, which is paralysis from the neck down, it is more than $5.4 million. Those figures do not include the indirect costs of lost wages and benefits, which the NSCISC says currently average about $82,329 per year in 2021 dollars.

Many people with paralysis find that they cannot return to the work they did before, and the loss of earning capacity can be as damaging to a family as the medical costs. Long periods of immobility also raise the risk of other serious health problems, such as pressure sores, urinary tract infections, breathing problems, bone loss and cardiovascular problems. According to the NSCISC, life expectancy for people with severe spinal cord injuries has not improved since the 1980s and remains well below that of people without such injuries, with the highest risk in the first year after injury. A life care plan prepared by medical and financial experts is used to put a value on all of these needs in a claim.