This article focuses on research conducted by Dr. Manda Holmshaw PhD, consultant clinical psychologist and Clinical Director of Moving Minds, and Wilson Carswell OBE FRCS, Medical Director of Moving Minds. The article delves into the need for psychological rehabilitation in combination with physiological rehabilitation for individuals involved in a road traffic accident.
The rehabilitation of those injured in a road traffic accident has been acknowledged as being important in assisting the victim to recover faster from their injuries and resume their routine work and social activities. However, the fact that psychological rehabilitation is as important as physiological, especially with regard to cases where trauma causes prolonged illness or problems has not always been acknowledged.
When a person is involved in a Road Traffic Accident (RTA), they often experience severe panic in the moment, believing that they are going to die or suffer serious injuries. The brain has defence mechanisms in operation to remove these sorts of memories from the forefront of the mind, enabling the person to deal with the trauma a short time after they are formed. But, in some cases of trauma this process is interrupted and the person may begin to suffer from long term psychological problems stemming from the accident. Such conditions include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Travel Anxiety and can prevent the person from resuming an active and happy life.
A study conducted by Professor Mayou in Oxford focused on 1000 consecutive RTA victims upon arrival at Accident and Emergency. The patients underwent a series of standard psychological tests to determine whether they experienced any psychological problems after the accident. A follow up of these tests was conducted over the subsequent three years. One in every three tested subjects showed to have experienced psychological disorder, while the majority were not severely injured as to require admission at a hospital. This figure gradually reduced over the period of the study to one in four victims being psychologically affected 3 years after the accident.
This is a significant problem when you consider that the majority of the group involved in the study were not even admitted to hospital yet still 25% of them were suffering from conditions including depression and PTSD years after the RTA took place.
Diagnosis and Evaluation
Psychologists have over the years researched into various types of psychological illnesses. Tests have thereafter been developed to look into the symptoms in determining which problem the patient may be suffering from. Some of the widely validated tools used by psychologists in supporting their diagnosis include the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), the Impact of Event Scale (IES), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI).
Psychological Assessment
Psychological assessment is vital in the management of an RTA victim who has experienced this sort of trauma and possibly been injured. This should be conducted by a Clinical Psychologist or Psychiatrist either in their consulting office or at the home of the victim.
These sessions can cost between 300-500 and they usually last 90 minutes in which time tests will be conducted to ascertain if PTSD or another condition is present and what the course of treatment for the condition should be. Also the Psychologist will use the Rehabilitation First Code of Practice when reporting as this is an independent report that can be used in a legal case, if compensation may be sought in a claim later regarding the accident.
Treatment
The commonest treatment at present is expectant, where the person hopes and expects to return to good health immediately! But as Dr Mayou’s experiment shows, this often doesn’t happen. The cost of this treatment is often significant; a person may not be able to return to work for some time and struggle with to return to a normal social life.
To treat PTSD, counselling is sometimes given, although it is not thought to be useful to a person whose problems derive from a single event where they have experienced Trauma. Also studies show that after long periods of counselling sufferers of PTSD have unalleviated symptoms.
Counselling also has proved unbeneficial to PTSD sufferers whose problems stem from one event like an RTA.
It is thought that both CBT and EMDR have similar success rates although more sessions of CBT are needed to produce the same recovery. Exposure therapy, although successful is currently used less frequently as treatment for PTSD but was used often in the Eighties.
Seeking Help
If you have been involved in an RTA and have concerns about psychological problems you could be experiencing, you should contact your GP to discuss your experiences and decide on a course of treatment if necessary.
In these circumstances you might be entitled to make a claim for compensation. When making a claim, look for a firm of solicitors who offer a no win no fee service and who specialise in Personal Injury Claims such as Duncan Gibbins Solicitors based in Manchester.
Want to find out more about how you may be able to claim compensation if you’ve been involved in a RTA, then visit Duncan Gibbins Solicitors who specialize in personal injury cases.
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