Head & Brain Injuries

• Fake Bad Scale: Weapon of Defense Neuropsychologists

  Michael Phelan | March 05, 2008 4:50 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  The Fake Bad Scale (FBS) is a bogus test created by Paul Lees-Haley to wrongly label personal injury claimants as "fakers." The FBS is junk science and should not be allowed in a court of law. Indeed, it violates the province of the jury by attempting to divine the credibility of witnesses. No test can act as a lie detector, which is how forensic defense neuropsychologists are trying to use...

• Brain Injury-What Are the Symptoms?

  Michael Phelan | February 14, 2008 9:51 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  The American Academy of Neurology has expanded the definition of the acute or immediate signs of concussion. Symptoms of brain injury can be mild to severe with some symptoms showing up immediately and others not appearing until several days or weeks after the injury. The AAN categorizes the signs of concussion as follows:Immediate Signs of Concussion(Seen within seconds/minutes):* Any loss of...

• Justice Dep't Fights to Deny Mental Health Care to Vets

  Michael Phelan | February 09, 2008 5:07 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  No matter how politicians view the war in Iraq, they all say publically that they support the troops. The signature injury of this war, brain damage, results in a host of symptoms including depression, suicidal ideation, and post traumatic stress. In opposing a proposed class action lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to troops returning from Iraq and...

• Old Head Injuries Linked to Behavioral & Cognitive Problems

  Michael Phelan | February 02, 2008 9:01 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  Researchers studying brain injury believe that people with unrelated social or cognitive problems may have something in common: a long-forgotten blow to the head. It is widely accepted that severe head injuries can lead to cognitive and behavioral problems. What is new, according to brain researchers Wayne A. Gordan, M.D. and Mary Hibbard, Ph.D., is the contention that there are many other...

• Mild Head Injuries Tied to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

  Michael Phelan | February 02, 2008 9:01 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine represents the military's first large-scale effort to gauge the effect of mild head injuries -concussions (many from roadside blasts)- that some experts worry may cause a host of undiagnosed neurological problems. My last blog reported on a study concluding that undiagnosed head trauma is the cause of a host of later cognitive and...

• R.I. Supreme Court Upholds Lead Hazard Mitigation Act

  Michael Phelan | December 12, 2007 1:32 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  On Tuesday, Rhode Island's Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of The Lead Hazard Mitigation Act (LHMA) which went into effect in 2005. The purpose of the LHMA is to reduce the hazards of deteriorating lead based paint to humans. Lead is a neurotoxin which can cause severe brain damage. Toddlers are particularly susceptible because they tend to put everything in their mouths and...

• Brain Injuries From Iraq War Worse Than Thought

  Michael Phelan | November 28, 2007 3:32 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  Scientists studying traumatic brain injury from bomb blasts are finding disturbing news. The invisible surge of compressed air traveling from these blasts is causing cellular death in the brain that leads to symptoms like memory deficit, headaches, vertigo, anxiety, apathy, or lethargy that may not surface for months or years. This newly discovered brain damage at the cellular level can be...

• Hospital Botches Third Brain Surgery This Year

  Michael Phelan | November 27, 2007 3:42 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  At a time when doctors across the country are flocking to a meeting in Texas to support caps on the amount of medical malpractice recoveries, Rhode Island Hospital reports that its neurosurgeons have mistakenly operated on the wrong side of a patient's brain three times in 2007. One of the patients died. This hospital serves as a teaching hospital to Brown University. If the tort reformers...

• $3.5 Million Settlement in Brain Damage Case

  Michael Phelan | November 14, 2007 11:39 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  I am so proud to represent, along with co-counsel Yvonne Griffin, one of the finest people I've ever met. Our client taught third grade to inner-city kids for 33 years and also worked a second job in order to put three of her own children through college. Last year, a truck crashed into her car and she suffered a fractured femur. She stopped breathing at the ER, and a CT scan revealed that...

• US Lacrosse Confronts Concussion Epidemic

  Michael Phelan | November 07, 2007 8:55 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  Two days after his team won the National Lacrosse League championship, Jay Jalbert was laying in a hospital bed recovering from his seventh concussion. Jay was forced to retire from professional Lacrosse. Four weeks after taking a routine shot off his face mask, Denver Outlaws goalie Trevor Tierney was still experiencing symptoms of his seventh concussion. Concussions are prevalent in contact...