Brain Injury Cases and Neuropsychological Testing
When health care professionals are attempting to confirm or assess cognitive impairment in a brain injury victim, they will often refer a patient for neuropsychological testing. In the San Francisco Bay Area we are fortunate to have several excellent hospitals and medical centers that treat brain injury victims. This includes San Francisco General Hospital's neurotrauma unit as well as the University of California, San Francisco.
Neuorpsychological testing is a series of tests, performed by a trained neuropsychologist, that can be used to identify specific deficits in brain function. Over the past decade neuropsychological testing has become a very focused science. It is also very useful to a personal injury attorney when representing a brain injury victim.
In head injury or MTBI cases, as well as traumatic brain injury cases (TBI), I have worked with neuropsychologists that have administered such testing and that have evaluated neuropsychological testing data as well.
If your client is referred for neuropsychological testing you may wish to retain a neuropsychologist to review the testing results and additional information in order to opine on the presence of a head injury or MTBI and its relevance to any cognitive impairment. If your client is not referred for neuropsychological testing you may wish to retain such an expert to perform the tests.
For either of these tasks it is extremely important for your neurophychologist to have the appropriate background information from which a baseline of the injury victim's functioning can be discerned and evaluated. This is accomplished by reviewing school records, academic and aptitude tests scores, speaking with friends, family members, coworkers, colleagues, supervisors and anyone that can attest to the plaintiff's level of cognitive functioning before the accident.
In head injury or MTBI cases the defense will most certainly retain a neuropsychologist. The defense expert's opinion may fall into one of two camps. First, no brain injury exits because the plaintiff's scores fall within the "normal" range. There are two problems with this assertion - how would the plaintiff have scored pre-trauma and with high functioning individuals this assertion is simply invalid. It is perfectly possible to have an individual with superior levels of premorbid functioning score within a "normal" range but at the same time have a deterioration attributable to a head injury.
The next defense assertion will be that if the data does indeed show impairment, then the plaintiff must be a liar or there is the presence of secondary gain to explain the scores. This opinion is subject to attack, however, due to the lack of baseline information and any other relevant information from which to corroborate this assertion. In other words, if the plaintiff has been truthful about all other aspects of her case and treatment, how can the expert make this conclusion? The answer is he can't - it's a leap of faith and should be the subject of a motion to strike at trial.
Brain injury or head injury cases are complex just like brain injuries. Neuropsychological testing can help both brain injury attorneys and a brain injury victims in their case and treatment. And there are excellent resources in the San Francisco area to utilize in both treating and representing brain injury victims. Do the extra work, make sure your expert has the relevant information from which a baseline assessment can be created, and do not allow defense expert opinions to go unchallenged. Good luck!
Brett A. Burlison http://sf-injury-law-answers.com/
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