Peripheral nerves are the extensive network of nerves that link the brain and spinal cord to all other parts of the body and are fragile and easily damaged.
A nerve injury can interfere with the communication between the brain and the muscles controlled by the nerve, affecting a person’s ability to move certain muscles or feel normal sensations.
A burn is an injury typically of the skin of variable thickness whereby the thicker the injury the greater the propensity for scarring. Burns are caused by extremes of thermal contact whether hot or cold, electricity, chemicals and ultraviolet irradiation.
Approximately 175,000 people per year in the UK attend accident and emergency departments with burn injuries although only about 10% require hospitalisation. Admission is more likely as a result of extensive areas involved, thicker burns, electrical or chemical burns, airway burns, paediatric burns with risk of non-accidental injury and circumferential burns of any body part.
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the type of psychological injury most typically cited in personal injury compensation claims.
PTSD is a natural emotional reaction to a deeply shocking and disturbing experience. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation and can sometimes occur after someone has lived through or witnessed a frightening incident such as a serious car accident, or was involved in a seriously frightening event.
The links between alcohol and violence are well established, and in nearly half (45%) of all violent incidents in the UK, victims believed offenders to be under the influence of alcohol.
Intoxication is not a defence in law unless it can be argued that the consumption of the intoxicant occurred involuntarily. A central descriptive characteristic of the alcohol dependence syndrome is the desire – sometimes overpowering – to take alcohol, which could be fairly regarded as involuntary consumption under certain circumstances.
Psychodynamics is a branch of psychiatry that deals with unconscious as well as conscious phenomena.
When one is confronted by a feeling or experience that is intolerable or unacceptable, the event is pushed into the unconscious mind and becomes unavailable for ordinary conscious consideration.
