Damages for Failure to Diagnose Stroke

When you go to see a medical provider, you expect to be diagnosed appropriately based on your reported symptoms and history. Unfortunately this is not always what happens. Sometimes doctors and specialists fail to catch the symptoms of a serious condition, and don’t diagnose or treat it, and the result can be devastating for the patient and their family. One medical condition that doctors often miss is stroke. If your doctor failed to timely diagnose stroke, you may be entitled to recover damages. Call the seasoned Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys about whether you have viable grounds to sue.

Strokes occur when the blood flow to a patient’s brain is interrupted. In some cases, strokes are minor, but they can also be catastrophic, depending on the circumstances. Strokes may be ischemic or hemorrhagic. With the former, there are a few hours from when you first suffer signs, and the results turn irreversible. A doctor who sees a patient during this window may have a professional duty to order certain kinds of testing, and to treat. When hemorrhagic strokes, which involve bleeding, occur, they may need to be treated by surgery.

It is important that Upstate New York doctors treat stroke patients according to the professional standard of care once initial symptoms are present. Symptoms could include difficulties talking, vision and balance issues, serious headaches, confusion, and more. In many cases, your doctor should have ordered an MRI or CT scan to determine whether you suffered a stroke and what kind it was, so that an appropriate plan can get underway. Failure to do so can result in serious, long-term injuries or even death.

Your doctor only has a short window to treat a patient that presents with symptoms of stroke. When appropriate steps are not taken, the result can involve permanent, life-altering consequences. For instance, if you’re suffering an ischemic stroke and presenting with symptoms, but your doctor fails to conduct immediate testing or the ER improperly triages you, there may be long-term harm that is expensive and painful to treat; you may be able to recover damages.

In most cases, when our Syracuse-based lawyers can establish liability for failure to diagnose or treat stroke, we can recover compensatory damages. These are damages intended to put you back in the position you would have been in had they abided by their professional duty of care. They can include both economic and noneconomic losses. Economic losses for a failure to diagnose stroke can include medical bills, lost wages, out-of-pocket costs, and replacement services. It may be necessary, for instance, to secure a speech therapist if you lose the ability to speak as a result of your doctor’s malpractice, and the future, present, and past expenses associated with this could be part of a damages award.

When a loved one suffers permanent brain damage as a result of failure to diagnose stroke, for instance, it may be appropriate to recover damages such as lost wages, the services of a long-term caregiver, medical expenses, and rehabilitation to the extent rehabilitation is possible. When a loved one is not diagnosed and dies as the result of a stroke, his or her family may be entitled to recover wrongful death damages, or all economic losses that flow from the malpractice-induced death.

If you suffered losses because of a failure to timely diagnose stroke, the experienced Syracuse attorneys of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to help you recover damages by filing suit. We also represent patients and families in Rochester, Ithaca, Utica, Lyons, Elmira, Norwich, Cortland, Delhi, Herkimer, Watertown, Lowville, Canandaigua, Oneida, Wampsville, Oswego, Cooperstown, Binghamton, Auburn, and all of Upstate New York. Call us at 833-200-2000 or complete our online form for a free consultation. Understanding how difficult it is to get back on your feet after going through a failure to diagnose strokes, we represent clients on a contingency fee basis.