About a third of American troops who have suffered brain injury from bomb blasts "show immediate evidence of stretched and damaged nerve fibers at both the front and the back of the brain," the Washington Post reported.
By Emily Mapp Brannon, Virginia Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney
A new study of American troops who have suffered brain injuries from bomb blasts may help doctors understand more about traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs.
The study showed about a third of American troops who have suffered brain injury from bomb blasts “show immediate evidence of stretched and damaged nerve fibers at both the front and the back of the brain,” the Washington Post reported.
The study included MRI scans on 63 members of the armed services. They were all men with an average age of 24. They had been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury. Some of them suffered a loss of consciousness and post-blast confusion, as well as lacking memory of the event that caused their injury.
It’s unclear if these findings in the New England Journal of Medicine will help identify people at higher risk of depression, thinking problems and post-traumatic stress in the wake of a blast injury. Experts hope the study will shed some light on the complex world of TBIs.
“This is not a pregnancy test for TBI,” said Alicia Crowder, a neuroscientist at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, who wasn’t involved in the research, told the Washington Post. “This is a foundation block on which to build a body of knowledge. It is a piece of a puzzle.”
The wide range of symptoms of traumatic brain injury mean estimates of how many troops have been affected in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, vary widely. The researchers are still looking at what these results mean to those affected in the long term.
While the Defense Department estimates fewer than 50,000 troops have received TBI diagnoses either in the war zone or within a month of leaving it, a group of civilian researchers, say there may be as many as 320,000 sufferers.
Our Virginia (VA) traumatic brain injury attorneys have reported on a number of cases of soldiers who have struggled to cope with their injuries after returning from war zone. They include Harris Turner, 26, a former Marine Corps corporal sustained several minor but lasting brain-rattling jolts from three tours overseas that led to brain injury. When he suffered a car crash in 2009, it exacerbated his combat injuries. He is undergoing rehab at the Alexandria VA Medical Center in Alexandria, Virginia.
Brain injuries are often misdiagnosed and are among the most misunderstood kinds of personal injuries. It can be difficult for a jury to sympathize with a victim because traumatic brain injuries can be invisible and non apparent.
But brain injuries can wreck lives. in 2001, our Virginia head injury attorneys represented a client who received a $365,000 jury verdict after a valve on a locomotive hit him on the head. While the effects of the injury weren’t obvious, this engineer suffered memory loss and a loss of cognitive function.
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About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law and have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office is in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. The initial award of $46 million rose to $60 million with interest when an appeal was settled confidentially. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard blogs as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company that caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.
