Key Iraq wound: Brain trauma

[underpants]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/keyiraqwoundbraintrauma

A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts. It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq (news - web sites) war.

Known as traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the wound is of the sort that many soldiers in previous wars never lived long enough to suffer. The explosions often cause brain damage similar to "shaken-baby syndrome," says Warren Lux, a neurologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

To identify cases of TBI, doctors at Walter Reed screened every arriving servicemember wounded in an explosion, along with those hurt in Iraq or Afghanistan (news - web sites) in a vehicle accident or fall, or by a gunshot wound to the face, neck or head. They found TBI in about 60% of the cases. The largest group was 21-year-olds. (Related story: Survivors struggle to regain control)

From January 2003 to this January, 437 cases of TBI were diagnosed among wounded soldiers at the Army hospital, Lux says. Slightly more than half had permanent brain damage. Similar TBI screening began in August at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., near Washington. It showed 83% - or 97 wounded Marines and sailors - with temporary or permanent brain damage. Forty-seven cases of moderate to severe TBI were identified earlier in the year.