Spinal cord compression – which affects roughly 12,000 people each year in the United States – occurs when pressure is placed on the spinal cord. This condition can be caused by trauma, including accidents and injuries, tumors, ruptured or herniated discs, and spinal stenosis. Spinal cord compression can occur anywhere from the neck to the lower spine. It commonly causes symptoms that include pain and numbness, loss of mobility, and loss of bowel or bladder function.
Cases of spinal cord compression resulting from sudden trauma are considered medical emergencies. In these cases, the longer symptoms persist without diagnosis or intervention, the greater the risk of permanent injury. Permanent nerve damage may also occur when spinal nerve roots are compressed – a condition known as cauda equine syndrome (CES). Early diagnosis and intervention is also crucial to reducing risks of permanent damages, including paralysis, incontinence, and other disabilities.
Medical malpractice takes many forms, and can certainly take place when medical professionals treat patients with spinal cord compression injuries. With these injuries, timely and accurate diagnosis is essential to providing timely and effective treatment that reduces the chance that a patient will suffer permanent harm. Unreasonable delays in diagnosis or intervention is considered a form or medical negligence. Other types of medical malpractice claims involving this condition allege failures to diagnose and failures to use proper treatments or prevent further damages.
At The Law Offices of Dr. Michael M. Wilson, M.D., J.D. & Associates, our Washington, DC medical malpractice lawyers have years of experience holding health care providers accountable for their failures to provide a reasonable standard of care. If you or someone you love have suffered harm as the result of medical negligence, call 202.223.4488 for a free consultation.
Dr. Michael M. Wilson is an attorney and a physician who earned his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his legal and medical degrees from Georgetown University. He has focused in the area of medical malpractice for more than three decades and secured more than $100 million in settlements and verdicts on behalf of clients throughout the country. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and New York as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is listed in America’s Top 100 High Stakes Litigators.
