Yes, and this is the single most common misunderstanding in these cases. A CT scan in the emergency department is looking for bleeding, skull fracture, and swelling, because those are what kill people in the first hours. It is not designed to detect diffuse axonal injury, the stretching and shearing of nerve fibers that causes the cognitive and emotional symptoms most concussion patients live with. Normal imaging and a real brain injury coexist routinely.

Neuropsychological testing administered by a neuropsychologist, which measures processing speed, memory, attention, and executive function against normed expectations. Records from treating specialists. Consistent documentation of symptoms over time. And testimony from people who knew you before, because a spouse or a supervisor describing what changed is often more persuasive than any test result.

Less than people assume, and its absence is not a defense. Most concussions involve no loss of consciousness at all. What clinicians look for includes altered awareness, confusion, and post-traumatic amnesia, and a brief gap in memory around the event can be as significant as blacking out. "I never lost consciousness" is not the concession an adjuster will treat it as.

Because the injury is metabolic as well as structural, and the cascade takes time. Headache, light and noise sensitivity, sleep disruption, irritability, difficulty finding words, and trouble following conversation in a noisy room commonly emerge or intensify across the first week. Delayed onset is the expected pattern, not a sign of exaggeration, and it is well described in the medical literature.

It does not defeat the claim, and it may strengthen it. Texas follows the principle that a defendant takes the injured person as they find them, so a pre-existing vulnerability does not reduce responsibility for the harm caused. Repeat injury is medically recognized as producing worse and longer-lasting effects, which means a prior concussion often makes a later one more consequential rather than less.

Expect it, because brain injury is invisible from the outside. The standard positions are that your symptoms are subjective, that they are attributable to stress, depression, or aging, that they pre-existed the incident, or that the crash was too minor to cause them. Each is answerable with testing, treatment records, and the accounts of people who knew you before.

It is a specialist's projection of every future treatment, therapy, medication, supervision, and assistive need, priced and scheduled across a lifetime. In moderate and severe brain injury cases it is usually the single largest component of the claim, because the cost of supervision and care over decades dwarfs the hospital bill.

Often far more than the medical expenses do. Loss of processing speed, working memory, organizational ability, and emotional regulation can end a career even when the physical recovery looks complete to an outside observer. Loss of earning capacity is a separate damages category from wages already lost, and it is proven with vocational and economic evidence.

No. Protective equipment reduces the severity of impact injuries. It does nothing to prevent the brain from moving inside the skull under rapid acceleration and deceleration, which is the mechanism behind most traumatic brain injuries. Concussions happen to people in helmets and in belted seats every day.

Keep a contemporaneous written record of what has changed: mood, memory, patience, sleep, driving, work performance, and the ability to handle ordinary tasks. In practice this is frequently the most persuasive evidence in the case, because people with brain injuries consistently underreport their own deficits. They are not being dishonest. The injury affects the very faculty required to assess it.

Two years from the injury under Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. A child's claim is generally tolled until two years after they turn 18. The practical difficulty is different: brain injury cases need time for the long-term picture to become clear, and that development has to happen inside the two years.

The firm is based in Austin and represents clients throughout Texas, primarily in Travis County, Williamson County, and Bastrop County.

Board certification by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization recognizes attorneys who demonstrate substantial experience in a specific area of law, pass a rigorous examination, and receive peer review.Brent A. Devere is Board Certified in Consumer and Commercial Law, Consumer Bankruptcy Law, Residential Real Estate Law, and Commercial Real Estate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.Working with a board-certified attorney means your case is handled by a lawyer with proven knowledge, experience, and commitment in their field.

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