Traumatic Brain Injury Among North Carolina’s Veterans

Abstract

This article describes the difficulty of diagnosing traumatic brain injury (TBI), treatment protocols provided through the military, an alternative therapy with scientific evidence of its effectiveness in repairing injured brain tissue, challenges faced by brain-injured veterans seeking community reintegration, and state services that are available to help veterans.

Traumatic Brain Injury in North Carolina

“…Similarly, with the involvement of our country in multiple wars over the past decade, there has been much attention devoted to our returning veterans, many of whom have sustained concussions and other types of brain injuries. The commentary by Hooker and Moore is focused on this special population and showcases the multiple complex needs of injured veterans when they return from the battlefield [15].…”

To Prevent Suicide, It Is Time to Identify PTSD and TBI as the Injuries They Are

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To the Editor-In 2015, Dr. Daniel Moore, then head of rehabilitation medicine at Vidant Hospital, and I, a retired member of the US Navy and advocate for wounded Veterans, authored a piece for the North Carolina Medical Journal about traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among our state's Veterans [1]. A key issue we raised was the ineffective care provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for these injuries, treating them instead as "mental illness," which applies a particular stigma among members of the military and their families.In the July/August 2023 issue of the journal, Dr. Harold Kudler's article, "Preventing Firearm-Related Deaths Among Service Members and Veterans," notes: "Veterans are often reticent to self-identify in clinical settings out of concern that civilian doctors won't understand their military experience" [2].

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“…To the Editor-In 2015, Dr. Daniel Moore, then head of rehabilitation medicine at Vidant Hospital, and I, a retired member of the US Navy and advocate for wounded Veterans, authored a piece for the North Carolina Medical Journal about traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among our state's Veterans [1]. A key issue we raised was the ineffective care provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for these injuries, treating them instead as "mental illness," which applies a particular stigma among members of the military and their families.…”