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Post-traumatic arthritis occurs after you suffer a joint injury in an accident such as a car crash. The condition causes joint pain, swelling, and joint instability. Severe cases can prevent you from performing normal activities without intense pain.
In most personal injury cases, you file a claim at the time of injury. However, post-traumatic arthritis may not show serious symptoms until years after your accident. This delay can cause legal complications in obtaining compensation for your injury. Hiring a personal injury lawyer increases your chances of a successful resolution.
Post-Traumatic Arthritis
Post-traumatic arthritis (PTA) is damage to joint cartilage caused by inflammation after an injury. PTA causes about 12% of osteoarthritis cases and some chronic inflammatory arthritis cases. It reduces your range of motion, causes chronic pain, and may cause the development of bone spurs.
The most commonly affected joints are the ankles, knees, hips, and elbows. Several kinds of injuries contribute to the development of PTA, including broken bones, sprains, strains, torn ligaments, and dislocations.
Symptoms of PTA may appear long after the initial injury and include:
- Swelling
- Extra fluid in the joint
- Pain and stiffness
- Tenderness to touch
These symptoms make performing everyday activities painful or impossible and can lessen your enjoyment of life, as well as making it difficult or impossible to work.
Impact of Post-Traumatic Arthritis on Daily Life and Long-Term Consequences
Post-traumatic arthritis can have a significant impact on your daily life. It can affect things like your work, productivity, and overall well-being. It can make performing simple and mundane daily tasks feel like major hurdles.
Living with PTA is a long-term condition that requires ongoing management. Here are some of the challenges you might face:
- Chronic Pain: The level of pain can range from dull and constant, to sharp and intense. For many sufferers of PTA, it is a constant companion. Although there are many medications to treat chronic pain, they often do not eliminate the pain completely.
- Surgical Treatment: In severe cases, joint replacement surgery may be necessary to restore function and alleviate pain. These surgeries can require weeks of recovery time, leading to loss of income due to missing work on top of substantial medical bills.
- Physical Therapy: Although physical therapy can help maintain strength, flexibility, and range of motion in the affected joint, it is often expensive and requires many sessions over an extended period of time to see lasting results.
- Psychological Impacts: The side effects and pain that come from PTA can impact mental health and cause feelings of depression, anxiety, and an overall decrease in one’s mental well-being.
Obstacles to Getting Compensated
Delayed diagnosis may be a significant obstacle to getting compensation for post-traumatic arthritis. Some cases may not appear for two to five years after an accident, and the civil statute of limitations for personal injury claims in New York is typically three years.
Insurance companies will likely claim there is no evidence that their client’s actions caused your PTA. An excellent personal injury attorney can help ensure that the insurance companies’ lawyers don’t dismiss your claim without a fair hearing. Exceptions to the statute of limitations can include cases where the injury was not immediately discovered (known as the “discovery rule”).
Generally, you can’t file another suit if you have already settled your claim for the crash in which you sustained the injury that caused your PTA. Speak with the legal team at Catalano Law to determine your available legal options for compensation.
Proving PTA is Connected to an Accident
To prove your pain and injury were caused by the actions of a negligent driver, seek medical treatment immediately after the accident or as soon as you suspect your injury. Keep all documentation about any injuries you sustain, especially those in or near a joint. This includes any X-rays, CT scans, or MRIs.
If you begin to show signs of post-traumatic osteoarthritis or post-traumatic inflammatory arthritis less than three years after the initial injury, make sure your doctor knows about the previous injury-causing accident and keep all documentation from this visit and future related visits.
Contact a car accident attorney at our law firm after this appointment to help you determine your next steps.
If you have an underlying joint disease that was exacerbated by the accident, it may be easier to win a car accident injury claim. Our skilled injury lawyers have the expertise and resources to help you prove you have an existing injury that was aggravated by your car crash.
Benefits of Hiring an Injury Lawyer
A car accident attorney knows the tricks insurance companies use to avoid paying claims, like saying your accident wasn’t the cause of your post-traumatic arthritis or that you were responsible for the accident.
An experienced attorney has access to a wide range of experts who can investigate the accident, interview witnesses, and provide medical testimony that can be used in settlement negotiations or at trial. Some of these experts can also help prove non-economic damage your PTA caused, like pain and suffering.
If your PTA causes you to miss work, or requires you to work fewer hours or on modified duty, your lawyer can help get you compensation for loss of income, as well as for all medical bills and physical therapy.
A good car accident lawyer knows what documentation you need from the accident and what medical records are relevant to a personal injury lawsuit.
Catalano Law Provides a Free Consultation
Contact the Syracuse car crash lawyers at Catalano Law for your free consultation. We know the importance a financial recovery can have on our clients’ ability to pay bills and move on after severe injuries.
We believe that victims of accidents caused by negligence or recklessness deserve financial compensation. We also believe car accident victims deserve the right to excellent legal representation, which is why we operate on a contingency fee basis. You pay our car accident lawyers nothing unless we win a settlement or judgment on your behalf.
Originally published June 6, 2022.
