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In the last 15 years, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dramatically changed the way we recognize and treat wounds like traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs.
In 2007, the Department of Defense mandated that diagnosing traumatic brain injuries needed to change from being symptom driven, to incident driven, explained Dr. Scott Livingston, the director of education at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
Livingston spoke with Task & Purpose about the different types of traumatic brain injuries, their symptoms, and how diagnosing these injuries has changed.
Prior to 2007, a service member had to self-report a traumatic brain injury, said Livingston. This meant that troops had to know what the symptoms were and be able to recognize whether or not they were suffering from one or more of them.
In 2007, the Department of Defense mandated that diagnosing traumatic brain injuries needed to change from being symptom driven, to incident driven, explained Dr. Scott Livingston, the director of education at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
Livingston spoke with Task & Purpose about the different types of traumatic brain injuries, their symptoms, and how diagnosing these injuries has changed.
Prior to 2007, a service member had to self-report a traumatic brain injury, said Livingston. This meant that troops had to know what the symptoms were and be able to recognize whether or not they were suffering from one or more of them.
What Is A Traumatic Brain Injury?
Posted from taskandpurpose.com
TBI
Injuries
Health
Victory for Veterans (VFV)
Edited >1 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 17
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They are difficult to diagnose. Think of a cube of jello you can cut into it with a knife and it will look like nothing happened but you shake it a little you can see there is a cut there. With the brain that is what happens with a TBI, and those little cuts have destroyed little connections. My TBI happened in 2005 and was not acknowledged until 2010
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SGT Anna Kleinschmidt
Lynda Key - That is how it was explained to me. I am an RN and when I had mine I was kind of ok but not completely. I would know what I wanted to say but I couldn't think of the word. I also became more impulsive with a much shorter fuse. Before I had the patience of Job. I had raised 65 foster kids and I had to give up foster parenting and can't be around that many kids at once now, we always had a house full before. I bassically had a complete personality change. It took several years befor VA decided to actually test me and decide that there was a head injury. The DR said it is basically an invisible injury but I had fractured my skull and broken several bones at the base of my skull. The force that is required to cause that amount of damage will leave definite permanent traumatic brain injury behind. He is surprised that I did not lose more function.
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The only TBI I ever had was taking an aluminum baseball bat to the side of my head during the batters back swing.
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SFC William Stephens
hey I been there too, never thought about that, when I was kid no wonder why I don't play baseball anymore.. walk right into the batter warming up. OUCH!
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Thanks for the article sir. I remember in 2009 sometime I was on the ship and slipped on some hydraulic fluid and fell down the stairs and got knocked out. It was late at night and the corpsman didn't seem to care and just asked if I could come back the next day. It is good to see that they are taking TBI's seriously now.
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