Frequently Asked Questions About Psychological Injury

Personal injuries can lead to significant psychological effects like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and more due to physical pain, lifestyle changes, and emotional trauma.

Common psychological conditions linked to personal injuries include Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which often arises after traumatic events like accidents, leading to flashbacks, hypervigilance, and emotional distress. Depression and anxiety are also frequently observed, manifesting as persistent sadness, lack of motivation, excessive worry, and difficulty coping with daily life. Other prevalent conditions include mood disorders, where individuals experience mood swings or emotional instability, and adjustment disorders, where they struggle to adapt to the life changes and limitations caused by their injuries.

Symptoms can manifest immediately or may develop over time, even weeks or months later. It is important to report any early-on mental health symptoms. Psychological symptoms are often overlooked or minimized against the more gruesome or visible physical injuries, which may heal much quicker overtime, leading a person to have to defend their psychological injuries, which were taking a backseat to those more noticeable physical injuries.

Yes, it’s possible. The law and decision makers recognize psychological injuries to be just as serious, or more serious, than physical injuries. If found liable, the at-fault party will have to compensate you for damages resulting from psychological injuries.

Yes. While some compensatory damages are straightforward to quantify, like income loss damages, others, such as valuing pain and suffering or lost enjoyment of life, are more challenging. Psychological injuries like anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression caused by an accident can be grounds for compensation.

Factors affecting the value of compensation include the severity of the psychological injury, recovery period, applicable legislation, and the impact on daily life. Severe psychological injuries, especially catastrophic injuries, result in higher compensation due to their significant impact and future care costs. Longer recovery periods and permanent psychological injuries also lead to higher compensation due to increased treatment costs and past and future income disruption.

To differentiate between normal stress and a compensable psychological condition, it is essential to seek a diagnosis from a qualified mental health professional, such as a psychologist or psychiatrist. Normal stress refers to the common emotional or psychological strain that individuals experience in everyday life, such as stress from work, family, or other personal matters. These stressors are typically temporary and manageable without significantly impairing a person’s ability to function.

A compensable psychological condition, however, involves mental and behavioural impairments that go beyond normal stress and lead to measurable, long-term impacts on a person’s ability to perform daily activities, work, and social interactions. Medical documentation from mental health professionals is crucial in establishing whether a condition exceeds the threshold of normal stress and meets the criteria for compensation. The diagnosis must clearly demonstrate how the psychological condition is linked to an accident or event and how it significantly impairs functioning beyond normal, everyday stress.

Pre-existing conditions can impact your claim but can still be compensable if, at the time of the loss, your pre-existing condition(s) were under control, either with or without treatment, and the accident aggravated your psychological condition. There are several factors that will be considered when there is evidence of pre-existing psychological conditions. For example, when did these mental health conditions present themselves? Were these issues still affecting the client at the time of this injury claim? What was the severity of the mental health condition? Is the condition being properly managed with medication and/or therapy? Did this new event worsen or exacerbate the pre-existing mental health condition? With your assistance and the assistance of your pre-existing health records, an experienced personal injury lawyer is able to handle the potential effects of pre-existing mental health conditions.

Yes, insurance companies often scrutinize psychological claims. Psychological injuries are frequently referenced as “invisible injuries or disabilities” because they are not as visible as physical fractures or other body disfigurements. There are few diagnostic tools in medicine to help clinicians confirm psychological injuries, which makes these types of injuries more susceptible to challenge. It is for this reason, we advise clients of the importance of regularly mentioning the functional impact that these psychological injuries are having on their activities of daily living, social interactions, ability to start and complete tasks, and adapt to stressful situations. This documented information in a health care providers clinical notes and records is the best evidence to overcome an insurance company’s challenge to your psychological injury claim.

Besides their primary role of providing, you with medical care, mental health professionals provide critical evidence regarding your psychological condition, its cause, and its impact on your activities of daily living, social functioning, concentration, persistence, pace, and ability to adapt to stressful situations at work or in work-like situations.

Psychiatrists play a key role in diagnosing mental and behavioural conditions, conducting assessments, and determining impairment levels based on the AMA Guides. In assessing psychological impairments for catastrophic impairment, they also rely on occupational therapists, who perform functional and situational assessments that provide valuable insights into the individual’s daily functioning, work capacity, concentration, persistence, pace, and ability to adapt to their impairments. The combination of these evaluations helps form a comprehensive understanding of the individual’s psychological impairment.

Occupational therapists play a vital role in assessing psychological impairments for determining catastrophic impairment under the AMA Guides. They conduct functional and situational assessments to evaluate how impairments impact daily living and work-related activities. This includes Functional Evaluations, which assess a person’s ability to perform tasks related to concentration, persistence, and pace. Additionally, Activities of Daily Living Assessments focus on how well individuals manage basic self-care and more complex tasks like managing finances or driving, which reflect their psychological resilience.

They also conduct situational assessments to evaluate performance in real or simulated work or work-like environments, focusing on coping skills, attention, and adaptability. Cognitive assessments help measure abilities such as memory, attention, and decision-making, essential for work and daily activities. These comprehensive assessments provide valuable insights into the individual’s functioning, helping psychiatrists and other medical professionals determine the severity of the psychological impairment and its impact on catastrophic impairment status.

Yes, you can typically claim compensation for the costs of treatment required due to a related psychological condition. There are laws that can restrict treatment costs in certain types of cases; however, in general, there is compensation available to an accident victim.