The “explosions of war” are causing soldiers to suffer traumatic brain injury. According to an article published in the PRNews-wire (http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1616136)it is estimated that nearly 20% of veterans are exposed to mild traumatic brain injury because of the mortar fire and improvised explosive devices. Imaging resources are not always the best in detecting brain injury. There have been some advances to MRI’s that may help in detecting mild traumatic brain injury (MBTI) and the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has more sensitivity to damaged brain cells than the traditions MRI’s and CT Scans. For more information on brain injury imaging equipment including DTI’s click here.
MBTI is difficult to diagnose and some go without being diagnosed at all. Mild Traumatic Brain Injury is covered on our website; www.braininjuryhelp.com. It is comforting to hear that the awareness that our soldiers are suffering brain injury from the blasts has increased. Efforts are being made on getting those veterans an accurate diagnosis and therefore the help that they need.To hear more about MBTI go to our Mild Brain Injury Pages by clicking here.
I spoke with a service man that had recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan. We discussed how awareness of the occurrence of traumatic brain injury has increased. He told me that they are watching and testing for brain injury in our soldiers. The military is doing pre-combat neurological testing and post-combat neurological testing. This is a big step in determining brain injury.
Testing soldiers at the time of the injury may show brain injury but they have also tested veterans up to four years after they had suffered the blast injury and have detected long term lingering deficits. Advances with more sensitive equipment such as the DTI will undoubtedly help in getting our veterans not only the care that they need but the care that they deserve.
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