Traumatic brain injuries 

A head injury in a nursing home or hospital often becomes a subdural hematoma that is not recognized for hours, and a nursing home brain injury lawyer who is a nurse traces the neurological checks to find the delay.

Older adults bleed inside the skull more easily than younger people, and many take blood thinners that make a small bleed a large one. After any fall with a head strike, the standard of care requires neurological checks at set intervals and a low threshold for a CT scan. A resident who becomes drowsy, confused, or unsteady in the hours after a fall and is simply put back to bed has been failed twice: once by the fall and once by the response.

Signs the Facility Should Have Acted On

• New confusion or drowsiness after a fall

• Headache, vomiting, or unequal pupils

• Weakness on one side or slurred speech

• A resident on anticoagulants who struck their head at all

What We Investigate

• The neurological check flowsheet after the fall, and the gaps in it

• The medication list, including blood thinners

• When the physician was notified and what was ordered

• The delay between the first change and the hospital transfer

• The CT report and the neurosurgical record

The Case Is in the Hours
Most brain injury cases in care facilities are not about the fall. They are about the six to twelve hours after it. A nurse reads that timeline differently than a lawyer does.