Citation

Larres DT, Carr W, Gonzales EG, Hawley JS. Mil. Med. 2016; 181(5 Suppl): 23-27.

Affiliation

Department of Neurology, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, 8901 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20889.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States)

DOI

10.7205/MILMED-D-15-00152

PMID

27168549

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) secondary to blast exposure is a common injury in the Global War on Terrorism, but little is known about the acute effects, recovery, pathophysiology, and neuropathology of blast-induced mild TBI (mTBI) in humans in a battlefield environment. Moreover, there is ongoing debate whether blast-induced mTBI is a different injury with a unique pathophysiology compared with mTBI from blunt trauma. In the case series reported here from Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, 15 military service members with acute concussion/mTBI associated with blast exposure were evaluated within the first 24 hours after concussion and on days 2, 3, 5, and 7 with a Graded Symptom Checklist and a balance assessment, the Balance Error Scoring System. These data suggest that the recovery in blast-induced mTBI follows the pattern of recovery in sports-related concussion reported in The National Collegiate Athletic Association Concussion Study. In this retrospective case series, we provide the first description of the natural history of acute recovery in blast-induced mTBI, and we suspect, given our experience treating military service members, that further observations of the natural history of recovery in blast-induced mTBI will continue to mirror the natural history of recovery in sports concussion.

Reprint & Copyright © 2016 Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S.

Language: en