Personal Injury Law

Study Shows That More Than 60% Have Pain 1 Year After Accident

By Mark Siesel, Esq.

The Journal Archives of Surgery published a study on March 17th which found that a year after an injury in a car accident, slip and fall or other types of accidents, 63 percent reported that they still had substantial pain related to the injury. The over 3,000 patients studied were 18 to 84 years of age, who had survived a traumatic injury.

The people in the study suffered head injuries, broken limbs, chest or abdominal trauma and other injuries in motor vehicle crashes, slip/trip and fall accidents and other circumstances. The most common areas of pain were in the joints and limbs (44 %), the back (26 %), the head (12 %), and the neck (7 %).

The American Pain Foundation, a Baltimore-based advocacy group, said the financial cost of chronic pain in the United States, including lost income, health care expenses and lost productivity in the workplace, is estimated to be $100 billion per year. According to this foundation, back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old.

In our practice, we are frequently battling with insurance companies in New York car accidents who want to cut our clients off from No-Fault benefits based on a negative MRI despite the fact that it is abundantly clear that the client is still in significant pain--without any objective proof of this pain such as positive X-rays, CAT Scans, or MRI's. In these situations, our recommendation to our clients is simple: you must continue to treat with your chiropractor, physical therapist, physiatrist, or acupuncturist, in order to alleviate the pain and establish the evidence necessary to meet the "No-Fault Threshold"--the requirement in order to recover compensation for injuries in a New York car accident.

Full post as published by New York Legal Blog on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).