Head Injury: Early Signs Predict How Soldiers Recover is a very interesting article on ‘mild’ brain injury based on research conducted at Washington University in St. Louis in conjunction with Naval Medical Center Portsmouth in Virginia.
According to the article:
“…even seemingly mild injuries can lead to severe long-term struggles, including difficulty returning to previous work, family, and social activities, new research shows.”
The research follows 38 patients diagnosed with mild blast-related brain injury and 34 service members without brain injury. Results suggest that 63 percent of patients in the brain injury group were classified as moderately disabled, compared with 20 percent of the control group.
I recommend reading the entire article. It’s findings are different than some of the you may have read previously. As the author states:
“The results were unexpected because the vast majority of past research on traumatic brain injury in military personnel and civilians has focused on cognitive function and physical symptoms such as headaches.”
My experience in working with civilian students with more mild injuries is fairly consistent with the results reported in this study.