Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawyer-Neck & Back Trauma Causes Degenerative Disc Disease.
The Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawyers at the Schmidt Salita Law Team have 90 years experience, collectively, in successfully representing the victims of personal injuries from car accidents, motorcycle accidents, trucking accidents, pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents. Many of these injuries have involved injuries to the neck and back including fractures of the vertebrae, injuries to the intervertebral discs, and injuries to the muscles, nerves and tendons.
The Minneapolis Personal Injury Lawyers know that traumatic injuries to the neck and back can result in degenerative disc disease.
Degenerative disc disease is a medical condition involving the deterioration of the intervertebral discs that cushion the spine, most commonly due to the wear and tear that is part of the normal aging process. In general, any activity that increases stress or strain on the spine can accelerate the degenerative process. In addition to advancing age, other risk factors for degenerative disc disease include obesity, poor posture, occupations involving frequent bending or lifting, sports-related injuries, and trauma to the spine.
Since disc degeneration associated with advancing age is usually a gradual process that develops over many years, most patients remain asymptomatic until the condition advances to the point at which it causes a breakdown of the disc structure which, in turn, leads to irritation or compression of the spinal nerve roots. At such time, patients may experience various symptoms including pain, tingling, numbness, and radiculopathy. In general, the treatment options for degenerative disc disease depend upon the severity of the symptoms and include pain medications, physical therapy, localized corticosteroid injections, and, in cases refractory to conservative treatments, surgery to alleviate compression of the nerves.
New Injuries Can Aggravate and Accelerate Degeneration of the Intervertebral Discs.
This condition is particularly relevant to personal injury lawyers in cases where trauma, such as from a motor vehicle collision or a fall, is superimposed in an individual with pre-existing degenerative disc disease. These types of cases can be especially challenging for a plaintiff’s attorney to litigate because the insurer’s defense expert will invariably attribute the patient’s ongoing pain and other symptoms to the pre-existing degenerative process as opposed to the trauma itself. To effectively counter and debunk this argument, the plaintiff’s attorney must be prepared to cross-examine a defense expert with peer-reviewed medical literature that strongly supports a causative link between the trauma and the ongoing symptoms in a client with pre-existing but previously asymptomatic degenerative disc disease. But finding this crucial literature requires meticulous research that can be time consuming, expensive, and even frustrating for many attorneys.
The Schmidt Salita Team Offers Contingent Fee Arrangements.
The firm offers contingent fee agreements (You don’t pay lawyers fees until you collect and then only as a percentage of the settlement). It also offers home and hospital visits to clients whose injuries present difficulty in coming to the office.
“PERSONAL INJURY WITH PERSONAL ATTENTION TO EACH CASE”.
The Schmidt Salita Law Team has locations throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as Minnetonka, Maple Grove, Plymouth, Osseo, Anoka, Coon Rapids, Brooklyn Center, Fridley, Blaine, Shoreview, Woodbury, Falcon Heights, Columbia Park, Stillwater, Hastings, Inver Grove, Cottage Grove, South St. Paul, Apple Valley, Eagan, Burnsville, Savage, Shakopee, Richfield, Bloomington, Chaska, Chanhassen, Edina, Eden Prairie, and Hopkins.
