Limb Loss & Limb Difference Awareness Month: How do we support our clients?

April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month. During this month, UK charities come together to raise awareness of people living with limb difference or people who have lost a limb. By raising awareness of the difficulties faced and the emotional and physical impact that has on people with limb loss and limb difference, it will help society move towards a more inclusive world for disabled people.

Limb loss and limb difference can affect anyone. Some people are born with limb differences or some people can lose a limb throughout their life due to an accident or illness.

Our Medical Negligence team have represented several claimants who have suffered the loss of a limb due to substandard medical care. By really getting to know our clients we can appreciate the difficulties they face on a daily basis and what is important to them. This helps us to ensure that we achieve a settlement for them which enables them to live a life as close to their ‘normal’ pre-injury life as possible. This can include making a claim for:

• Prosthetics – prosthetic limbs are lifechanging but can be incredibly expensive. NHS provision is limited, and we find that our clients obtain much more benefit from having private input in relation to their prosthetics. This allows them to have better fitting, better looking and higher functioning limbs which improves their quality of life significantly. Client’s will usually require physiotherapy and other forms of therapy to assist them in using their prosthetic limb properly and maintaining good physical and mental fitness which may be hampered by the loss of their limb.

• Aids & Equipment – Claimants who have lost lower limbs may require a wheelchair to help them get around. Claimants who have lost upper limbs may require items which are adapted to be used with one hand e.g. one-handed cutlery, or electronic openers.

• Housing Adaptations – it may be that a Claimant requires certain parts of their home to be adapted to accommodate a wheelchair for example. This might include widening of doorways or having ramps installed.

• Assistive Technology - This could be from voice activated controls around the home, to fob entry systems or environmental controls where doors and windows can be opened and closed automatically.

We previously acted for a client who suffered the loss of all four limbs due to a hospital’s failure to diagnose and treat Adult Onset Stills Disease. This disease is a rare type of inflammatory arthritis which can affect the whole body.

Our client suffered below elbow amputations of both arms, one above the knee amputation and one below the knee amputation. She uses prosthetics for all four limbs to enable her to live a life as close to her life before her injury and to maintain her independence.

Her prosthetics included ‘day to day’ legs, waterproof legs, cosmetic arms, electronic arms and ILimbs which are electronic hands. Prosthetics are incredibly complex pieces of equipment and there is not one limb which will enable a person to carry out all their tasks and hobbies, which is why different types of prosthetic limbs are required.

Our client went through a harrowing experience of losing all four limbs over a matter of days. She was forced to adapt her whole life, to learn how to use new equipment, to rely on family, friends and carers to help her with most aspects of daily life. Having good prosthetic limbs has helped her to regain some independence, to drive her own car and to enjoy her life.

Our client said: “To me prosthetics are important because they give me a sense of independence, good prosthetics especially give me comfortability and confidence, knowing all eyes aren’t on me because my limbs are different.”

Lauren Phillips, Head of Medical Negligence said: “For those who have suffered limb loss because of an accident or negligent treatment and have to pursue litigation; it is so important that we, as medical negligence solicitors, fully understand and appreciate not only the practical and daily difficulties people with limb loss encounter but also what makes that person tick including what they enjoyed doing before their limb loss and what is important to them.”

She adds: “Our client’s only get one opportunity to secure compensation so it is vitally important that we understand an individual’s requirements so that we can properly quantify the claims and do our part to help ensure individuals can live as independent and as fulfilled lives as possible”.

This Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month we would like to raise awareness of the struggles that those with limb loss and limb difference face and to celebrate the work done by the various charities to support and empower these people.

If you feel you have a claim, our team of medical negligence solicitors are here to listen and help you work out whether compensation may be available to you. Please do not hesitate to contact us at Taylor Rose on 020 3540 4444.