Traumatic brain injuries are signature wound of the war

Traumatic brain injuries are signature wound of the war
Sunday, October 16, 2011
By G. Wayne Miller

PROVIDENCE — Improved armor and advances in battlefield medicine have increased survivability for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but for some, living has come with the burden of traumatic brain injury — often described, together with posttraumatic stress disorder, as the “signature” wound of the War on Terror.

According to specialists at the Providence VA Medical Center, explosions are the most common cause of combat-related brain injuries — and the majority of these blasts are produced by the signature enemy weapon of the war, the improvised explosive device (IED).

A blast generates a wave of intense pressure that can violently churn the brain without necessarily damaging the outside of the head. Penetrating shrapnel can also injure the brain, as can violent contact of a helmet-protected head with a hard surface, such as the inside of a Humvee.

“The brain sits inside the skull and it’s surrounded by fluid,” says Stephen Correia, the VA Center’s Neuropsychology Section chief. “If you have a sudden acceleration of your head, you can have sloshing of the brain inside there. You can get contact of the brain on the inside of the skull.”

The injury causes an acute period of altered or lost consciousness, which the injured soldier typically does not remember when coming to. Some victims will recover quickly and experience no long-term effects, the brain having spontaneously healed. But for those less lucky, traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause headaches, memory loss, fatigue, attention deficits, disorientation, dizziness and other difficulties that can persist for months or years.

“It’s not unique to this war,” Correia says. “What’s unique to this war is people surviving them.”
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