Catastrophic Injury

Catastrophic injuries are life-threatening and could leave you with permanent disabilities. If you suffer an injury like limb loss, brain or spinal cord damage, or severe burns or fractures, Ara Chitchyan, MD, and his team at American Rehabilitation Associates in Peachtree City, Georgia, can help. They offer comprehensive rehabilitation services that help reduce your pain, encourage healing, and restore lost function. Call American Rehabilitation Associates for expert advice on catastrophic injury recovery or schedule a consultation today using the online booking tool.

What is a catastrophic injury?

A catastrophic injury is particularly severe and significantly impacts the patient. These injuries typically require extensive medical treatment and surgery, with a prolonged and challenging recovery process.

Catastrophic injuries frequently cause long-term or permanent functional disability and/or disfigurement. Rehabilitation medicine often plays a vital role in helping people recover from catastrophic injuries.

What injuries are considered catastrophic?

The main kinds of catastrophic injury are:

• Extensive burns
• Loss of a limb
• Severe brain injuries
• Spinal cord injuries and paralysis
• Multiple bone fractures

These injuries might affect several different body systems and your central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). You could have severe gastrointestinal, respiratory, circulatory, and other problems following a catastrophic injury.

What causes a catastrophic injury?

No specific events qualify an injury as catastrophic — the injury’s severity determines its classification. However, the most common causes include:

• Auto accidents
• Workplace accidents
• Fires
• Earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters
• Faulty devices
• Toxic substances
• Birth injuries

You could also suffer a catastrophic injury doing everyday activities like DIY or playing sports.

How do physical medicine and rehabilitation help with catastrophic injuries?

Physical medicine and rehabilitation are invaluable for recovering from a catastrophic injury and resulting surgeries. Treatment aims to help you regain function, strength, and flexibility, as far as possible. It also assists in healing and enables you to adapt to your limitations after an injury. Your personalized treatment plan might include:

• Physical therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Laser or ultrasound therapy
• Orthotics, braces, and splints
• Walking aids
• Pain relief medication
• Psychological counseling
• Steroid injections
• Radiofrequency ablation
• Orthobiologics

The American Rehabilitation Associates team specializes in treating catastrophic injuries using orthobiologics like platelet-rich plasma (PRP). These are substances that your body uses to repair and regenerate tissue, such as platelets containing growth factors in your blood and mesenchymal stromal cells in your fatty tissues or bone marrow.

The team withdraws a blood, fat, or bone marrow sample from you and refines it to produce a concentrated dose. Your provider then injects the orthobiologic into damaged tissues to promote healing.

Call American Rehabilitation Associates today or book an appointment online to learn more about expert catastrophic injury treatment.