Troops' brain function targeted
Bangor Daily News- All members of the American armed forces will soon have their brain functions tested and recorded before and after deploying to a war zone, courtesy of federal legislation co-written by U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Hillary Clinton of New York. The testing is seen as an important step toward recognizing and treating traumatic brain injury, or TBI, widely considered the "signature injury" of the war in Iraq and, increasingly, in Afghanistan as well.
Getting a jump on the federal policy, the Maine Army National Guard already has started testing soldiers’ brain function before deployment, perhaps the first group of "civilian soldiers" to generate computerized records of their cognitive performance .
Estimated rates of service-related traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion, vary, but some say that as many as 15 percent of all troops who have deployed to Iraq are affected. The physical trauma occurs most often when troops are the targets of roadside explosives or suicide bombers. The force of the explosion causes the brain to hit forcibly against the inside of the skull. The injury may be intensified inside soldiers’ protective metal helmets.
