Study Finds High Risk of Traumatic Brain Injury among Young Workers

Much of the focus on brain injury tends to be on people who have sustained serious and consistent head injuries while playing rough contact sports, or veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injury during combat. However, there is another category of brain injury victims, and their numbers are increasing slowly but steadily.

According to new research that was published in the Journal of Safety Research recently, young workers may also be at a much higher risk of traumatic brain injury, but these incidents are not well documented.

The researchers analyzed the costs associated with traumatic brain injury among young workers in the State of Washington. The data came from the Washington Trauma Registry, as well as workers’ compensation claims. The researchers identified as many as 273 traumatic brain injury cases that had resulted from a workplace accident. All of these cases involved workers between the ages of 16 and 24.

One of the interesting findings in the research was the fact that traumatic brain injury often involves such young workers. About one third of the cases that resulted in a traumatic brain injury did not end in a workers’ compensation claim. However, among those injury cases that were linked to a workers’ compensation claim, the median average cost for medical treatment was approximately $16,426 when the only injury was a brain injury, and $41,167 in those cases where the brain injury was also accompanied by other injuries.

The number one cause of brain injuries among young workers are fall accidents. That is not surprising, because overall, slip and fall accidents contribute to a large number of brain injuries every year. Other causes of brain injuries among young workers, included being struck by objects in the workplace, or work-related motor vehicle accidents.

The Texas catastrophic injury lawyers at Schechter, Shaffer & Harris, L.L.P., Accident & Injury Lawyers represent people injured in workplace accidents across Texas.