Raising Traumatic Amputation Awareness

Aug. 6, 2010 - PRLog -- Woodland Hills, CA, August 6, 2010 – “The rise in the number of amputees returning from Iraq and Afghanistan offers a real opportunity to turn tragedy into triumph,” says local injury attorney, Robert A. Brenner. “The news coverage has ramifications beyond any political spin commentators give it. It helps bring the long-term consequences of traumatic amputation into the public dialogue.”

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced amputees at twice the rate of past conflicts. This is a consequence of better trauma care. Lives are being saved that would have been lost in past wars. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has responded by paying for a $7.2 million research program to develop a newer generation of prosthetics.
As part of his law practice, Mr. Brenner negotiates on the behalf of clients to secure money for the care of amputees, which often extends many years beyond the original injury. He describes how juries have to be educated on the long-term costs and problems.
“The false assumption is that once a limb-end has healed and a prosthetic fitted, the difficulties are largely over. Unfortunately, this is not the case.”

Some of the continuing challenges include physical therapy and the associated costs (transportation, specialized occupational rehabilitation); psychological needs (depression is common in amputees); changes in lifestyle or employment that mean a prosthetic has to be re-fitted or altered; advances in prosthetic design that offer a better solution (generally at a higher cost); additional surgery to address changing medical status at the amputation site (bone and vascular problems).

“An amputation is not a death,” says attorney Brenner, “but it is a life-altering event. My worry is that these brave men and women won’t have the resources down the road after the public’s attention moves elsewhere. I hope their battles are over and they won’t have to fight the government to get the care they will need ten or fifteen years from now.”
Robert Brenner is an injury attorney based in California who practices nationwide in the area of catastrophic injury. He can be reached through his website: http://www.attorneyrobertbrenner.com.

See More - Traumatic Amputation Lawyer  :http://www.attorneyrobertbrenner.com/brain-injury-lawyer.htm

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