The Impact Of Scarring After An Accident

In the aftermath of an injury that damages our skin, like a laceration or a burn or similar injury, there may be a lasting mark of what you endured: a scar. And while many people see a scar as “just a scar,” a scar can actually have more serious and long lasting consequences than you may think.

Problems With Scarring

When your skin is injured, it heals with a scar. But a scar isn’t new skin that operates the way that your old skin operated. Aside from the visual problems that scars cause there can be a multitude of functional problems that occur.

One such problem is nerve damage; scar tissue does not grow back with the same nerve endings that the original skin had.

That means that for people with scarring, there can be long lasting numbness or lack of feeling. In some areas of the body, this may not be a big deal, but in other areas, it may affect the persons’ ability to carry on daily life activities. There may be a general feeling of discomfort or pain in our own skin, when we lose feeling in a part of our body.

Scar tissue is also not as pliable or malleable as the original skin was. That means that in areas where the skin needs to stretch or be moved, scar tissue can be tougher, and restrict movement. In some cases, the inability to move as easily or freely, can lead to pain on movement and restriction of movement.

Impact on Work

A scar can even have an impact on how we do our jobs; imagine a piano player with hand scarring. While that scar may to most people may be minor, if a pianist’s fingers cannot move the way they’re supposed to, that scar can threaten his or her livelihood.

Visual Aspects

But what about how a scar looks? Yes, many of us have scars in different parts of our body, but the visual disfigurement from a scar that is caused by an accident still is a compensable injury.

As you may imagine, the value of a scarring injury depends on the size and location of the scar. A scar in a readily visible area, may have a higher value than a scar that is elsewhere on the body.

Some of us also depend on our looks to do our jobs, or are in jobs where physical appearance matters. Any job where someone is in front of, and speaking before other people, may be affected by a scar in a visible area. Obviously, anybody in a profession that depends on their looks, like someone on TV, or a representative of a fashion company, or anywhere that physical image matters, may have their ability to do their job seriously affected.

Future Revision

There are ways to minimize the effects of a scar after it forms, but that usually entails surgery. That means that in cases where the scar is significant, future medical expenses must be built into any verdict or settlement, to allow the victim to have scar revision surgery if needed in the future.

Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 for help if you have suffered a scar after an accident.

Sources:

my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/11030-scars

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5572078/