By Katie Drummond June 8, 2010 | 9:45 am | Categories: Military Life
Despite billions in research dollars and a vow to improve their handling of this war’s “signature wound,” the military’s ability to diagnose troops with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) is “about as reliable as a coin flip.”
That’s only one of the disturbing findings of a new investigation by ProPublica and NPR. According to the Pentagon, 11,500 troops are suffering from TBIs. But the investigation, which pored over unpublished military documents, studies, and correspondence between military officials and troops, concluded that the figure is likely higher — by tens of thousands.
The investigation is the latest in a series of reported failings in care for ailing vets, as well as TBI diagnosis and treatment. But it comes three years after the Pentagon vowed to improve the management of brain injuries, and poured $1.7 billion into doing just that.
Since then, at least some of that money has gone into a handful of out-there research efforts, including brain implants and helmet sensors. But outside the science lab, progress has been agonizingly slow: one of the military’s TBI diagnostic tests missed the injuries in 40 percent of troops, according to an unpublished study cited by the report. And much-touted handheld devices, meant to spot TBIs in the war-zone, often fail to transfer the information to a troop’s permanent medical file. Not that paper records fare much better. They’ve often “been lost, burned or abandoned in warehouses.”
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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/billions-of-dollars-later-military-docs-still-cant-spot-brain-injuries/