Battle between PTSD and TBI?

We know the troops and veterans with PTSD have been misdiagnosed in order to cut the payments they will receive for this wound. They have been given tiny disability ratings in order to give them a one time payment without receiving free care for their wounds as well. We also know there is still a stigma attached to PTSD. Is this part of the problem?

The symptoms of TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury, are similar to PTSD. Do we have troops/veterans more readily claiming TBI than PTSD because there is no stigma attached to TBI? We really need to wonder if this is the case at least some of the time. Most TBI veterans also have PTSD but which one is the more dominate wound? Are they compensated for both or are they lumped in together? Do they receive treatment for TBI instead of PTSD? There are so many questions that need to be answered in order to provide the right treatment and compensation for their wounds but if they are reporting based on avoiding the stigma of PTSD, there is a huge problem because they will not be treated for the right wound and there is a huge difference between the two.

Officials: Troops hurt by brain-injury focus
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are overemphasizing mild traumatic brain injury among combat troops at the expense of other medical problems that are going untreated, two Army mental health researchers say in an article that has raised intense objections from other scientists studying the condition.
Cols. Charles Hoge and Carl Castro say the military should scrap screening questions meant to uncover cases of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) among troops returning from combat. Most troops who suffered a concussion in battle recovered within days of the injury, the researchers say.


Symptoms blamed on TBI after troops return home likely are due to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance abuse, Hoge and Castro say, and the overemphasis on mild TBI keeps troops with those conditions from being properly treated.

Their article, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, says the Pentagon and VA are relying on flawed science to identify what the Pentagon estimates may be up 360,000 cases of brain injury suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hoge and Castro have conducted some of the military's early and influential research on conditions such as PTSD.
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Army officials: Brain injuries overdiagnosed