Is TBI research good for troops or researchers?

I have huge issues with what has been going on with PTSD and military suicides. It had bothered me so much that I wrote a book about it. Disgusted with the lack of interest from journalists, it only got worse when I was putting together the research. If I was able to figure out back in 2009 that Comprehensive Soldier Fitness would increase military suicides the geniuses getting paid to research it should have managed to figure it out as well but they didn't. There is a chapter in The WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR dedicated to shining a light on the massive amounts of money being spent yet producing higher suicides. If you liked that book, then you'll love this investigation on the Examiner. I focused on PTSD but this focuses on TBI.

The truth is while money keeps being spent, the results are more deaths and suffering. They suffer while others fill their bank accounts pretending to be looking for treatments. Very little has been learned in the last 10years on TBI. As for PTSD, they have been researching it for over 40 years.

TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY RESEARCH, GOOD FOR THE TROOPS OR THE JUST THE PhDs?
Examiner
BY: BILL WILLIAMS
TOP NEWS
JULY 31, 2013

Tens of thousands of Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have returned home with traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Many TBI injuries are caused by blasts from those nasty improvised explosive devices, but they can also be caused by any jolt to the head that rattles a soldier’s brain inside his helmet.

There are numerous research centers across the country conducting research on TBI. It is difficult to determine how many because some don’t advertise and some don’t reveal if they are funded by government or private sources, or a combination of both.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has spent tens of millions of dollars researching TBI since the two Middle East wars and it still has no cure. It does have individualized treatment plans, according to VA spokesperson Ndidi Mojay. “Veterans with a positive TBI screen are evaluated by a TBI specialist to provide a definitive diagnosis and develop an individualized rehabilitation plan of care,” she said.

“According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, 266,810 soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD from 2000-12.

But after ten years of studies, all America has is publications by TBI researchers who tour the world on the taxpayer’s buck. There is a basic treatment protocol, but there is no cure.

In 2011, the taxpayers paid for a play at a Berkshire’s resort in Massachusetts – a skit about soldiers with TBI. Can you say “IRS employees dancing on stage YouTube video?”

This summer the federal government closed a center in Charlottesville that provided treatment for military members and veterans with traumatic brain injuries because the facility had a low patient volume and high costs compared to other facilities.

From soccer to football to our wounded war Veterans, there is a lot of research being conducted on traumatic brain injuries. But this article questions its relevance or cost-effectiveness. For instance, Ralph DePalma MD and his team from the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC. Are preparing another journal article for publication, but look how the first sentence of the article begins: Blast-related TBI was first noted with the use of trinitrotoluene during World War 1, while PTSD appears to have affected combatants as long as the history of war.”

Really? So the question of what research has been doing goes further back than Houston’s five million dollar grants?

One of DePalma’s few insights in the article was that 52-percent of returning warriors has one or more of the following: Pain, TBI and PTSD; 9.6% of them have TBI; 29.4% has PTSD, and 40% have pain, while 6% have all three. read more here