Ocean County Workers' Compensation Law Blog

If you are one of the many divorced or widowed residents in New Jersey who has found love again, you may well be excited to move forward and plan your future with a new partner. However, before you jump into a new marriage too quickly, it is important that you carefully evaluate some of the practicalities involved in intermingling your life with another person. This is especially relevant if one or both of you have children from prior relationships. 

As explained by Forbes, estate planning can be slightly more complicated for blended families because of the need to find the right tools to properly assign ownership or successorship of assets to the right parties. Without a will or a trust, a surviving spouse might end up with some things that the deceased person wanted to go to their biological children. A solid estate plan is the only way to ensure these wishes are followed.

As much as many in Ocean County may hate to admit it, advancing age brings with it certain physical limitations. One's reaction times may slow, and their vision may deteriorate, making things that they were able to do with relative ease in the past (such as driving a vehicle) difficult. It may be tough to tell one who ie entering their elder years that they need to cut back (or even stop doing) the daily activities that once seemed routine to them. Yet their physical limitations may ensure that allowing them to continue to do them puts others at risk. 

A recent car accident that occurred in Margate may serve as an example of this. A 90-year old Cherry Hill woman was traveling as a passenger in a vehicle driven by an elderly man (himself 80 years old) when their vehicle was struck by another car. An investigation into the accident is still ongoing, yet preliminary reports say that the driver was attempting to make a left turn when the car was hit by the other vehicle (which was coming from the opposite direction). No word has yet been released on whether the elderly driver suddenly turned in front of the ongoing vehicle or not. Sadly, the woman in the vehicle was killed in the collision. 

You may certainly feel as though you dodged the proverbial bullet if you (or a loved one) are able to emerge from having suffered a traumatic brain injury in Ocean County without having experienced any serious physical impairments. Yet it is important to remember that you (or your loved one) may not be out of the woods just yet. Many of those who have come to us here at Silvi, Fedele & Honschke Attorney's at Law, LLC after having sustained TBIs tell us that the most difficult aspect of dealing with said injuries are the cognitive impairments that often result from them. 

If you (or your loved one) are struggling to resume the same activities that you were engaged in prior to suffering your TBI, then you may be experiencing the same difficulties. According to the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center, cognition is understanding, thinking and acting upon the information associated with the tasks of daily living. Many TBI victims often find managing these tasks difficult either temporarily or indefinitely. Some common problems that those suffering from cognitive impairments include: 

• Difficulty focusing on and completing tasks
• Being unable to grasp the information others are trying to share with them
• Troubles communicating clearly (or finding the right words for the right situation)
• Difficulty retaining information
• Trouble maintaining self-discipline and control
• Struggling with making sound decisions

The receipt of healthcare in Ocean County does not come with a satisfaction guarantee. This is due to the fact that, despite the improvements made in diagnostics medicine in recent years, there may still be a margin of error when attempting to determine exactly what is wrong with a patient. Most may know and understand this, yet still the expectation is that a clinician will exhaust all available resources in attempting to correctly diagnose a patient, and that their full and undivided attention will be devoted that task. It is when that expectation is not met that patients may feel justified in seeking legal action. 

Such action was recently initiated on behalf of a deceased California woman and her unborn child. According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her family, the woman presented to a local hospital for treatment for swelling and high blood pressure. The doctor who saw her prescribed her a medication and discharged her to home with instructions to follow up with another physician. That doctor agreed with the referring provider’s diagnosis and advised the woman to follow his recommended course of treatment. A few days later, she was found unresponsive and rushed to the hospital (where she and her unborn baby later died).