War Veterans’ Concussions Are Often Overlooked

J.D. Pooley for The New York Times

Former Staff Sgt. Kevin Owsley struggles with memory loss and light sensitivity, symptoms of mild traumatic brain injuries he sustained in 2004.

War Veterans’ Concussions Are Often Overlooked

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: August 25, 2008 Former Staff Sgt. Kevin Owsley is not quite sure what rattled his brain in 2004 — the roadside bomb that exploded about a yard from his Humvee or the rocket-propelled grenade that flung him across a road as he walked to a Porta Potti on base six weeks later.

After each attack he did what so many soldiers do in Iraq. He shrugged off his ailments — headaches, dizzy spells, persistent ringing in his ears and numbness in his right arm — chalking them up to fatigue or dehydration. Given that he never lost consciousness, he figured the discomfort would work itself out and kept it to himself.

“You keep doing your job with your injuries,” said Mr. Owsley, 47, an Indiana reservist who served as a gunner for a year outside Baghdad in March 2004. “You don’t think about it.”

But more than three years after coming home, Mr. Owsley’s days have been irrevocably changed by the explosions. He struggles to unscramble his memory and thoughts. He often gets lost on the road, even with directions. He writes all his appointments down but still forgets a few. He wears a hearing aid, cannot bear sunlight on his eyes, still succumbs to nightmares and considers four hours of sleep a night a gift.

Mr. Owsley is part of a growing tide of combat veterans who come home from war with mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions, caused by powerful explosions. As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, in Iraq or Afghanistan have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity. These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble the lives and livelihoods of returning soldiers.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/26tbi.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin