We've talked a great deal on this blog about how tragic it is that it's taken a horrible war to increase public awareness of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The Iraq War has sent hundreds of our military home with TBI's, numbers high enough that traumatic brain injury has been dubbed "the signature wound" of the war. We are, of course, glad that more and more people now know about TBI and its devastating effects on its victims, their families and caregivers. But it is profoundly sad that this knowledge has come with such a painful price. Here's another article that would not have been written if we were not at war in Iraq:

One of the increasing problems that some soldiers returning from Iraq are having to deal with are brain injuries. We’ve heard a lot in the news about their having post-traumatic stress disorder, but an increasing number of soldiers are also having problems associated with traumatic brain injury. Soldiers hurt on the battlefields are not the only people who can sustain brain injuries, but their increasing numbers are creating an increased awareness of TBIs.

A TBI also can be caused by an automobile accident, a fall, physical abuse, a sports accident, an aneurysm, carbon monoxide poisoning, a stroke, substance abuse or birth defects. An estimated 1.5 million Americans suffer a brain injury each year, and this number far exceeds the number of people who have multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, HIV/AIDS and breast cancer combined. As a matter of fact, there are approximately 5.3 million people who are living with some type of disability that has been caused by a brain injury.

When a person has a TBI, he/she can have physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological, functional, behavioral and/or social changes present - and each person has different symptoms with varying degrees of severity. Because of the complexity of the brain, and the many different aspects of an individual’s physical and behavioral wellness that are affected.

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