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Mental health is impacted by spinal cord injuries

On Behalf of | Feb 15, 2022 | Personal Injury |

Spinal cord injuries can be hard to cope with, especially for a person who was physically active before they were injured. For some, a huge impact on their mental health is difficult to overcome. Mental health challenges are far more common in those with a spinal cord injury than in the general population. 

There are a host of mental health conditions that can occur with a spinal cord injury. These sometimes occur in conjunction with each other. 

What types of mental health conditions are common with spinal injuries?

Substance abuse disorders are common in these injuries. This is sometimes due to the person needing a lot of medications to overcome the symptoms of the injury and deal with their pain, but it’s sometimes because they want to forget about how much their life has changed. Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are also possible in these cases. 

When these are co-occurring conditions, they can all feed off each other. Substance abuse might get worse as the depression gets worse. Substance abuse can cause depression to get deeper. The vicious cycle continues until the person can address all the co-occurring conditions. 

When a spinal cord injury is the result of the negligence of another party, you might opt to seek compensation. This can help you to cover the financial expenses that come with this type of catastrophic injury. You can include the cost of medical care in this claim. You can also include missed wages that are due to you having to take off work because of the injury. Remember, there are time limits in Georgia for these cases, so you need to act quickly.