Halifax Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Early Identification of Brain Injury Critical

Early identification of patients who have suffered mild traumatic brain injury is imperative to determine appropriate treatment and ensure a maximum recovery. Although there is some disagreement among medical professional as to what constitutes mild traumatic brain injury, all medical professionals agree that amnesia is evidence of a brain injury.

Online Tool Helps Explain

I want to thank my fellow blogger, Bruce Stern at the Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog, for pointing me to a website created by the Department of Psychology at MacQuarie University in Australia. The website was created to help patients who have suffered a mild traumatic brain injury and has an online presentation of the abbreviated Westmead Post-Traumatic Amnesia Scale. The A-WPTAS is a method of measuring the duration of post traumatic amnesia.

You can watch the presentation here.

Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia

As I have mentioned before, I have been appointed to the Board of the Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia: Halifax Chapter. BIANS website has a list of online resources for survivors of brain injury and their families.

Continue reading " Assessment of Amnesia in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Cases: Nova Scotia Personal Injury Lawyer Explains " »

We have been investigating potential personal injury claims against Bayer Inc. the manufacturer of the drug Trasylol (Aprotinin) for almost a year now.

In January 2006, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that of the 4,400 heart surgery patients who received Trasylol:

1. Trasylol increased the risk of stroke by 181%;

2. Trasylol increased the risk of heart attack by 48%; and

3. Trasylol increased the risk of heart failure by 109%.

Furthermore, in a Canadian Research Study referred to as the BART Study, Trasylol was compared to alternative health surgery drugs. The BART Study found that 1 in 50 patients who received Trasylol died from complications related to the drug.

Some patients at the cardiac unit of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax Nova Scotia received Trasylol as part of the hospital’s pre-operative procedures. There are no public statistics about how many patients from the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre received Trasylol or how many of those patients who received Trasylol developed debilitating or fatal complications.

If you or a family member had heart surgery at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre and suffered stroke, heart attack, heart failure or kidney damage after your surgery, you may have a potential claim for compensation.

Continue reading " Trasylol (Aprotinin) May Cause Fatal Side Effects: Information for patients " »

Last night I attended the annual Christmas party for the Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia (Halifax Chapter).

As I have mentioned before, I was recently appointed to the Board of the Halifax Chapter of BIANS.

The party was a great success and credit is due to my fellow Board members who volunteered their time to organize and put on the party. It was a great start for the newly reestablished Halifax Chapter of BIANS!

Congratulations to fellow Board members: Dr. Beverly Butler, Sean Layden, Chris Rafuse,
Ellen Day, Carol MacFarlane, Laurie Wile-Yorke, Laura Hambleton, Patricia McCaul, Vincent Young, and Robert Holmes.

A “multi-million dollar” class action law suit has been filed against drug manufacturer Bayer Inc. for injuries allegedly caused by the drug Trasylol (also known as Aprotinin)

CTV News has reported that a number of class action lawsuits have been filed in the United States. Now patients in Canada have filed a similar lawsuit.

Bayer Inc. withdrew Trasylol from the market after medical research studies showed that patients treated with the drug were more likely to die than patients treated with other medication.

We have been investigating potential Trasylol claims for almost a year.

In May of this year I posted about a Canadian study called the “BART Trial” which found that patients who received Trasylol were 53% more likely to die than people who received other common anti-bleeding agents like Aminocaproic Acid.

You can read the post here: Trasylol (Aprotinin) Anti-Bleeding Drug Raises Death Risk: Canadian Study.

Almost a year ago a documentary on CBS’s 60 Minutes discussed the risks posed by the drug and suggested that the manufacturer, Bayer, hid evidence that Trasylol was dangerous. The documentary pointed out that as far back as January 2006 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study reporting that Trasylol was connected with kidney failure, cardiac arrest and stroke in patients undergoing coronary artery surgery.

You can watch the whole 60 Minutes story here.

You can also take a look at my earlier post: Is Trasylol (Aprotinin) the Next Vioxx? Manufacturer Hid Evidence Drug was Dangerous.

Trasylol (Aprotinin) has been used by the cardiac surgery unit of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre for many years. If you or a family member suffered kidney failure, cardiac arrest or stroke after having heart surgery, you may have a potential claim.

For more information you can contact me at www.apmlawyers.com or toll free 1-877-423-2050 or through this blog.

Here we go again. Prince Edward Island’s Department of Health has been investigating a radiologist (currently on leave) because of what the Department describes as an “unacceptably high” error rate.

However, despite the fact that the radiologist’s mistakes may have an impact on the health and safety of patients in Prince Edward Island, the Department has refused to make the report public.

CBC has reported that Dr. Karunamoy Das has been on leave since an independent audit of his work showed that his interpretation of CT scans, MRI images, x-rays, and ultrasound images had an error rate of 12%. The Department of Health ordered a complete review of all 5,700 diagnostic images that Dr. Das reviewed.

Deputy Health Minister Keith Dewar has said that patients whose records were reviewed have been told of their own results.

The report is just the latest in a string of media reports about problems with medical test results in the various Atlantic Provinces which have included faulty pathology test results in New Brunswick and problems with breast cancer screening test results in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Unfortunately, I think we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. Most health care professionals are capable and hardworking individuals. However, they are working under crushing work loads and severe underfunding of our health care system.

In the short term, the funding crisis is only going to get worse as the global financial crisis impacts Provincial health care budgets. In the long term, the demands on our medical system are going to increase exponentially as the baby boom generation ages and their health problems become more complicated.

A Toronto neurosurgeon, Dr. Charles Tator, says that professional hockey players, NHL exceutives and parents need to be more aware of the serious effects that concussions have on the brain.

CTV news quoted Dr. Tator as saying that the problem of sports related concussions has:

"...reached epidemic proportions... Too many people are getting these concussions. They really are not mild . . . We have to take it more seriously."

Dr. Tator repeated what those of us that represent injured victims have known for a long time: The effects of brain injury due to concussion are too subtle to show up on standard medical imaging tests like CT scans and MRI.

The Brain Injury Association of Nova Scotia (BIANS) has posted a page about sports related concussions.

For more information, you can take a look at my website where I have posted about the 8 Myths of Traumatic Brain Injury or watch the video tutorials that I have posted on my website apmlawyers.com.

We have also posted some of the tutorials on YouTube. You can watch one of them here.

Continue reading " NHL, Parents Need to be Aware of Brain Injury from Concussion " »