How Are Head And Brain Injuries Handled Under A Workers' Compensation Claim?

If you suffer an injury to the head or brain while working, please listen to the discussion involving traumatic brain injuries which is set forth in Category No.6635. You need to keep in mind that the compensation you can seek under Iowa Workers' Compensation Laws is different than the compensation you can seek for head or brain injuries if your injury arose out of some non-work related accident.

In the workers' compensation context your primary workers' compensation benefits are medical benefits, healing period benefits, permanent partial disability benefits, and vocational benefits. Focus in a workers' compensation case will be primarily on the issue of whether your head or brain injury affects your ability to work. Head or brain injuries can affect not only your physical ability to work but they may also affect your mental ability to work. For example, as a result of a head or brain injury you may have difficulty concentrating, remembering, maintaining attention, or suffer from a loss of energy. Although these problems may be somewhat subtle they can have a significant impact on your ability to work and make a living. In a lot of cases it will be necessary to get several different types of professionals involved in order to assess what affect the head or brain injury has had on your ability to be gainfully employed.

Probably the most important thing to remember if you suffered a work related injury to your head or brain is that you need to make sure that both your medical providers and your legal counsel have experience and knowledge with regard to handling these types of work related injuries.