Cauda Equina Disability Claims - Housing Adaptations for Cauda Equina Patients
If you have suffered profound neurological injuries as a result of cauda equina syndrome, you may need to adapt your home to accommodate your disabilities. Here we explore what can happen with cauda equina disability claims.
If you are making a legal claim for the care you received during the diagnosis and treatment of your condition, your solicitor will arrange for an accommodation expert to assess your situation and make recommendations. The cost of potential housing adaptions as a result of your cauda equina disability can then be incorporated into your compensation settlement.
Disability after cauda equina syndrome
Cauda equina syndrome has to be treated very quickly if a patient is to make a good recovery. If medical practitioners fail to diagnose the condition in time, and/or fail to arrange emergency decompression surgery, the patient will suffer permanent neurological disabilities.
The nature of these disabilities often leave the patient with a very restricted lifestyle. In fact he/she may be find themselves stuck at home for most of the time, as the pain and loss of mobility in the legs renders both walking and driving very difficult.
Even if a patient is not wheelchair-bound, he/she will probably be very vulnerable on their feet and may experience significant trips and falls. This can make it very difficult to manoeuvre around a house with multiple stairs.
Modifications may therefore be needed to enable the patient to live on the ground floor, with adaptations made to create a disabled downstairs bathroom and bedroom. Alternatively a stair lift may be installed, although it is likely that adaptations will still be needed to make the bathroom safe. Other features, such as safety rails and banisters, may also have to be fitted around the house.
In the long-term, the patient's disability will usually become worse with the effects of ageing. In humans, the muscles begin to waste as we reach our seventies and eighties. By this stage, if not before, the patient will need to live in single level accommodation.
Accommodation expert for cauda equina disability claims
Making these adaptations can be very costly. However, if you are making a medical negligence claim for your cauda equina syndrome disability, your solicitor can include the cost in your compensation settlement. This will mean that you receive the necessary funds to adapt your home to meet your needs.
Your solicitor may recommend that an accommodation expert considers your home arrangements to see whether any modifications can be made to allow you to sleep and shower on a single level without disturbing the family dynamic too much. Your solicitor can then use this information to ensure you are awarded a suitable amount of compensation.
Contact us
If you are not yet making a claim for cauda equina syndrome but think you might be entitled to do so, please get in touch with us. We specialise in medical negligence claims and can help you sue those responsible for your injuries.
Please call us free on 0800 234 3300 (or from a mobile 01275 334030) or complete our Online Enquiry Form.
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