As it struggles to cope with the emerging battlefield reality of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the Department of Defense has developed a mantra: “Improve detection, treatment, and prevention.” Despite this chant, the military chronically underestimates the number of troops who have TBI. The misrepresentation stems from current policy and warfighting culture, in addition to imperfect detection measures. Understating brain injury’s significance only exacerbates the epidemic.
The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury center estimates that in the year 2010 alone, about 31,200 service members sustained TBIs. And those high rates were not isolated: from 2007 to 2009, an average of 27,000 new such injuries occurred each year.1 These staggering numbers actually underrate TBI prevalence. Yet another form of underestimation stems from the cultural environment surrounding TBI diagnoses. About 80 percent of all military TBIs are classified as only “concussions,” despite having been caused by explosive blast exposure.2 This underrating of both the prevalence and the severity of TBI is a significant problem for those affected
By J. Patricia Blanco Kiely
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2011-09/tbi-not-just-concussion
No comments:
Post a Comment