Monday, December 8, 2008

Panel Urges More Screening of Brain Injury in Troops

From NY Times:

A long-awaited government report is calling on the military to test all
new recruits for cognitive skills and then do large-scale studies of
returning combat veterans to better evaluate and respond to traumatic brain injury, the signature wound of the Iraq war.

For years, veterans’ advocates and researchers have called for more
careful investigation of head injuries — not just severe wounds but
also “closed head” injuries, which do not produce visible damage and do
not show up on CT scans.

Some doctors and veterans say the high
blast impact of I.E.D.’s, the roadside explosives that have accounted
for most head injuries to troops in Iraq, may be creating symptoms that
differ from the sort of concussions suffered in sports or car accidents. Many veterans have complained of persistent, sometimes disabling symptoms like sleeplessness, dizziness and confusion that can resemble disorders like post-traumatic stress and can complicate disability assessments....

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