Stroke Misdiagnosis Lawyers in Philadelphia

Strokes Are a Leading Cause of Death and Serious Injuries in the United States

Every 40 seconds, someone in the U.S suffers from a stroke, with a stroke-related death occurring every 4 minutes. All told, about 800,000 people in the U.S. suffer a stroke each year, with more than 140,000 people dying. Strokes are the 5th leading cause of death in the U.S. and a leading cause of serious disability for adults.

Strokes Too Often Are Misdiagnosed

Doctors fail to correctly diagnose strokes at an alarming rate, putting patients at risk for severe health consequences. One study found that 9 percent of strokes are initially misdiagnosed in the emergency department, particularly when patients present with symptoms such as headache, vertigo, and nausea, which have many different causes.

What Is a Stroke?

Simply stated, a stroke is a sudden interruption in blood flow to the brain. There are two major kinds of strokes:

• Ischemic: Caused by a blockage of blood vessels in the neck or brain, most often caused by a blood clot or severe narrowing of the blood vessels.
• Hemorrhagic: Caused by a blood vessel in the brain that breaks and bleeds into the brain.

Ischemic strokes are far more common, but both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes share symptoms—making it vital for doctors to act quickly and assess the full clinical picture. Key warning signs such as high blood pressure, blood-thinner use, recent head trauma, or COVID-related clotting risks must be identified immediately. Mismanagement of anticoagulant blood-thinner medication can result in both hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes if patients are over- or under-anticoagulated.

When physicians skip a thorough history, fail to connect obvious risk factors, or delay critical imaging—allowing a stroke to worsen—the resulting devastation is often preventable. In those cases, victims and their families may have a strong claim for medical malpractice.

Why Do Doctors Fail to Correctly Diagnose Strokes?

Proper medical diagnosis always begins with obtaining a complete and accurate medical history and ordering appropriate diagnostic tests. However, stroke diagnoses are delayed in some cases because initial symptoms can be nonspecific, and the onset of symptoms can appear at varying times across patients. Some patients experience symptoms―such as weakness, confusion, poor coordination, and difficulty speaking—within minutes of the ischemic blood clot or the hemorrhagic brain bleed, which makes the correct diagnosis clearer to doctors. However, when a patient experiences the onset of these symptoms over a period of hours or days, they are more likely to be misdiagnosed.

Sometimes doctors misdiagnose strokes as migraines, vertigo, and even alcohol intoxication because the symptoms of these conditions—known as “stroke mimics”—overlap significantly with the neurological deficits caused by a stroke.

Timely Diagnosis Is Critical

A stroke is a medical emergency. The quicker doctors accurately diagnose and treat it, the better the patient’s outcome is likely to be. Two million brain cells die every minute during a stroke, which puts a patient at risk for permanent brain damage, disability, or death. Treatment within three hours of symptoms improves the chances of recovery with little or no disability.

Treatment will vary depending on what type of stroke a patient has. Treatment of ischemic strokes entails restoring blood flow to the brain. Treatment of hemorrhagic strokes entails controlling the bleeding and reducing the pressure in the brain caused by the excess fluid.

Millions Recovered, Futures Secured

Since our firm’s founding in 1987, the medical malpractice attorneys at Feldman Shepherd have recovered millions of dollars in stroke misdiagnosis cases.

Attorneys Mark W. Tanner and Peter M. Newman recovered a $12.5 million settlement for a woman who suffered an intracranial hemorrhage when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain a year after she was seen by the defendant doctors with symptoms of an aneurysm. Radiologic studies ordered by the defendants had confirmed the existence of the aneurysm, but the defendants had failed to notify the patient that an aneurysm had been identified and failed to refer her to a neurosurgeon, depriving her of the treatment that would have prevented the subsequent rupture.

The victim, who led an active lifestyle prior to the aneurysm, is now totally dependent on others for all self-care and activities of daily living. The settlement ensures that the victim’s medical and related care needs will be taken care of for the rest of her life.

Why Retain the Stroke Misdiagnosis Team at Feldman Shepherd?

With a team that includes a physician/attorney, two nurses/attorneys, and seasoned trial lawyers with extensive medical and legal knowledge, we are uniquely qualified for the demands of complex stroke malpractice cases, which often involve multiple parties, intricate medical issues, and significant challenges in proving fault and causation.

Our stroke misdiagnosis attorneys consult with highly regarded and nationally prominent experts in a number of medical practice areas, including physician specialists, life care planners, and economists, to build the strongest case possible. We use the latest courtroom technologies—including 3D models of injuries, medical animations and illustrations, and artificial intelligence and other software technologies that can highlight key information from medical documents on large screens in the courtroom—to make the complexities of your case understandable for lay jurors. We often use professionally produced “day in the life” videos to humanize your experience and drive home the impact of your injuries. As part of our trial preparation, we typically work with mock juries to fine-tune our arguments and gain key insights as to what is most likely to resonate in the courtroom.  

Let Feldman Shepherd Review Your Stroke Case

If you believe you or a loved one is a victim of medical malpractice arising from stroke misdiagnosis or delayed treatment, contact our medico-legal team today.

We can help secure all compensation to which you are entitled, including compensation for pain and suffering, financial losses, emotional distress, medical expenses, and around-the-clock care where necessary. We prepare you for what to expect at every step of your malpractice case, and each member of our team will have a detailed and intimate understanding of the issues you face. Our Philadelphia firm advances all litigation expenses, so you never pay anything out of pocket. And if we are unable to secure compensation for you, you owe us nothing. While every medical malpractice case turns on its own specific facts, our goal is unwavering: to pursue the highest recovery available to you, as efficiently and effectively as possible.