thedrifter
11-23-07, 08:15 PM
Data: Thousands of TBI cases off the record
By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Friday Nov 23, 2007 12:42:45 EST
Along with 20,000 other veterans, Marine Lance Cpl. Gene Landrus is not included in the Pentagon’s official count of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s because his wound was to his brain and hidden from view.
Landrus — who faces medical separation from the Corps and is up for the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in a May 2006 roadside bomb attack outside Abu Ghraib, Iraq — said he did not realize the nausea, dizziness, memory loss and headaches he suffered after the blast were signs of a lasting brain injury.
Army medics who examined him in the field didn’t find the wound either.
“They wanted to know if we had any holes in us, or if we were bleeding. We were in and out of [the aid station] in 10 to 15 minutes,” said Landrus, 24, of Clarkston, Wash.
For the balance of his combat tour, he tried to shake off the blast’s effects and keep going. Now, “my goal is to get back to a normal life,” he said.
A USA Today survey of four military installations and the Department of Veterans Affairs, where combat veterans are routinely screened for brain injury, has found that about 20,000 people show signs of damage. That’s nearly five times the number officially listed by the Pentagon — 4,471.
Soldiers and Marines whose wounds were discovered after they left Iraq are not added to the official casualty list, said Army Col. Robert Labutta, a neurologist and brain injury consultant for the Pentagon.
“We are working to do a better job of reflecting accurate data in the official casualty table,” Labutta said.
The military lacks “a standardized definition of traumatic injury or a uniform process to report all [traumatic brain injury] cases,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Ellen Embrey wrote in a memo last month. As a result, it is hard to determine the scope of the problem, she wrote.
Most of the new cases involve mild or moderate brain injuries, commonly from exposure to blasts.
“Unfortunately, because the Pentagon has been slow in understanding and tracking [traumatic brain injury], this huge gulf in reporting doesn’t surprise me,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
More than 150,000 troops may have suffered head injuries in combat, says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.
“I am wary that the number of brain-injured troops far exceeds the total number reported injured,” he said.
Landrus was riding in an open-backed, armored Humvee when the roadside bomb detonated. It was his second exposure to a blast. An explosion a month before had “rung our bells a little bit, but no one was knocked unconscious.”
In the attack, Landrus and three other Marines blacked out for several seconds. After Landrus regained consciousness, “everything looked like it was going in slow motion,” he recalled.
The battalion came home in August 2006 to Camp Pendleton, Calif., one of a few military installations that screens for brain injuries among returning troops. Landrus was referred to Navy doctors who diagnosed brain injury. With medication and rehabilitation training at nearby Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Landrus has improved.
“I still can’t remember what I did the day before or stuff that I did earlier in the day,” he said. He carries a Palm Pilot or a pad of paper to write down orders, numbers or dates, so he can remember them later. The headaches have never gone away.
Landrus will never fully recover, said Jessica Martinez, his lead therapist at Scripps.
“This is basically like an invisible injury,” she says. “He looks like a normal guy. ... But if you spend any amount of time with him ... you would be able to notice that something’s really happened.”
The data compiled by USA Today came from:
* Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where troops evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for injury, illness or wounds are brought before going home. Since May 2006, more than 2,300 soldiers screened positive for brain injury, said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw.
* Fort Hood, Texas, home of the 4th Infantry Division, which returned from a second Iraq combat tour late last year. At least 2,700 soldiers suffered a combat brain injury, Lt. Col. Steve Stover said.
* Fort Carson, Colo., where more than 2,100 soldiers screened were found to have suffered a brain injury, according to remarks by Army Col. Heidi Terrio before a brain injury association seminar.
* Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where 1,737 Marines have suffered a brain injury, according to Navy Cmdr. Martin Holland, a neurosurgeon with the Naval Medical Center San Diego.
* VA hospitals, where Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been screened for combat brain injuries since April. VA found about 19 percent of 61,285 surveyed — or 11,804 veterans — with signs of brain injury, spokeswoman Alison Aikele said. VA doctors say more evaluation is necessary before a true diagnosis of brain injury can be confirmed in all these cases, Aikele added.
One base released its count of brain injuries at a medical conference. The others provided their records at the request of USA Today, in some cases only after a Freedom of Information Act filing was submitted.
Ellie
By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Friday Nov 23, 2007 12:42:45 EST
Along with 20,000 other veterans, Marine Lance Cpl. Gene Landrus is not included in the Pentagon’s official count of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s because his wound was to his brain and hidden from view.
Landrus — who faces medical separation from the Corps and is up for the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in a May 2006 roadside bomb attack outside Abu Ghraib, Iraq — said he did not realize the nausea, dizziness, memory loss and headaches he suffered after the blast were signs of a lasting brain injury.
Army medics who examined him in the field didn’t find the wound either.
“They wanted to know if we had any holes in us, or if we were bleeding. We were in and out of [the aid station] in 10 to 15 minutes,” said Landrus, 24, of Clarkston, Wash.
For the balance of his combat tour, he tried to shake off the blast’s effects and keep going. Now, “my goal is to get back to a normal life,” he said.
A USA Today survey of four military installations and the Department of Veterans Affairs, where combat veterans are routinely screened for brain injury, has found that about 20,000 people show signs of damage. That’s nearly five times the number officially listed by the Pentagon — 4,471.
Soldiers and Marines whose wounds were discovered after they left Iraq are not added to the official casualty list, said Army Col. Robert Labutta, a neurologist and brain injury consultant for the Pentagon.
“We are working to do a better job of reflecting accurate data in the official casualty table,” Labutta said.
The military lacks “a standardized definition of traumatic injury or a uniform process to report all [traumatic brain injury] cases,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Ellen Embrey wrote in a memo last month. As a result, it is hard to determine the scope of the problem, she wrote.
Most of the new cases involve mild or moderate brain injuries, commonly from exposure to blasts.
“Unfortunately, because the Pentagon has been slow in understanding and tracking [traumatic brain injury], this huge gulf in reporting doesn’t surprise me,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
More than 150,000 troops may have suffered head injuries in combat, says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.
“I am wary that the number of brain-injured troops far exceeds the total number reported injured,” he said.
Landrus was riding in an open-backed, armored Humvee when the roadside bomb detonated. It was his second exposure to a blast. An explosion a month before had “rung our bells a little bit, but no one was knocked unconscious.”
In the attack, Landrus and three other Marines blacked out for several seconds. After Landrus regained consciousness, “everything looked like it was going in slow motion,” he recalled.
The battalion came home in August 2006 to Camp Pendleton, Calif., one of a few military installations that screens for brain injuries among returning troops. Landrus was referred to Navy doctors who diagnosed brain injury. With medication and rehabilitation training at nearby Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Landrus has improved.
“I still can’t remember what I did the day before or stuff that I did earlier in the day,” he said. He carries a Palm Pilot or a pad of paper to write down orders, numbers or dates, so he can remember them later. The headaches have never gone away.
Landrus will never fully recover, said Jessica Martinez, his lead therapist at Scripps.
“This is basically like an invisible injury,” she says. “He looks like a normal guy. ... But if you spend any amount of time with him ... you would be able to notice that something’s really happened.”
The data compiled by USA Today came from:
* Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where troops evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan for injury, illness or wounds are brought before going home. Since May 2006, more than 2,300 soldiers screened positive for brain injury, said hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw.
* Fort Hood, Texas, home of the 4th Infantry Division, which returned from a second Iraq combat tour late last year. At least 2,700 soldiers suffered a combat brain injury, Lt. Col. Steve Stover said.
* Fort Carson, Colo., where more than 2,100 soldiers screened were found to have suffered a brain injury, according to remarks by Army Col. Heidi Terrio before a brain injury association seminar.
* Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where 1,737 Marines have suffered a brain injury, according to Navy Cmdr. Martin Holland, a neurosurgeon with the Naval Medical Center San Diego.
* VA hospitals, where Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been screened for combat brain injuries since April. VA found about 19 percent of 61,285 surveyed — or 11,804 veterans — with signs of brain injury, spokeswoman Alison Aikele said. VA doctors say more evaluation is necessary before a true diagnosis of brain injury can be confirmed in all these cases, Aikele added.
One base released its count of brain injuries at a medical conference. The others provided their records at the request of USA Today, in some cases only after a Freedom of Information Act filing was submitted.
Ellie