As personal injury lawyers, we represent clients who suffer all types of injuries from a great variety of sources. In most cases, in addition to other injuries, our clients suffer some form of soft tissue injury.
What is soft tissue injury? We hear the term used frequently but the term is often misunderstood. Physicians and sports injury experts use the term often to describe a injury, but what exactly is an injury to the soft tissue?
In general terms, soft tissue refers to ligaments, tendons and muscles throughout the body. Soft tissue injury refers to injury to ligaments, tendons and muscles throughout the body. Soft tissue injuries are painful and often takes a long time to heal. In many cases, soft tissue injuries are permanent.
Some soft tissue injuries are caused by a single impact to the body or multiple blows to the body and is usually caused due to stress placed on a joint and/or muscles. Soft tissue injuries can also be caused by overuse of the body (tennis elbow for instance). In personal injury cases, we usually deal with multiple or single blows to the body causing soft tissue injuries which is what you expect to see in slip and fall, trip and fall accidents or car accidents.
No matter how the soft tissue injury is caused, the end result is still the same – pain and disability. Symptoms include pain, swelling, bruising, redness, and instability. Soft tissue injuries can be minor or severe and it is important that the injury be properly diagnosed and treated by a physician experienced in dealing with soft tissue injuries.
There are all kinds of injuries that constitute part of the soft tissue injury group. These most common soft tissue injuries we see as personal injury lawyers are sprains, strains, contusions, tendinitis and bursitis. A sprain is caused by a stretched or even torn ligament. A strain is the stretching and tearing of soft tissue, specifically associated with tendons and muscles as opposed to ligaments. A contusion is a bruise (broken blood vessels). Tendinitis is caused by overuse of muscles, usually secondary to a greater injury. Bursitis is simply an inflamed bursa (or sac) that helps relieve friction in your joints.
Soft tissue injuries can cause significant pain and fatigue. It is not uncommon for our clients to feel depressed because of severe soft tissue injuries. We have often seen clients become completely debilitated by soft tissue injuries.