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Carson study: 1 in 6 shows TBI symptoms

FORT CARSON, Colo. — A 22-month study of Fort Carson soldiers returning from the Middle East found that nearly 18 percent suffered from at least a mild form of traumatic brain injury, which can be caused by close calls from explosions.

Of 13,440 soldiers examined since June 2005, 2,392 exhibited some of the symptoms associated with mild TBI which include headaches, memory loss, irritability, difficulty sleeping and balance problems, Col. John Cho, who commands the Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, said Tuesday.

Fort Carson will be submitting its study results to a leading medical journal for review and possible publication, said Col. Heidi Terrio, chief of deployment health at Evans.

“As it turns out, TBI may very well be the signature injury of this war,” Cho said.

Like post-traumatic stress disorder, there is no “identifying marker” that would make brain injuries easy to diagnose.

“We have an obligation to determine what the long-term effects are of TBI. No one has that answer, but you have to start somewhere,” he said.

Bullets and shrapnel that penetrate the skull are the obvious causes of TBI, but explosions that have rattled the head of Fort Carson soldiers are overwhelmingly to blame, Cho said. Blast waves and the resulting sudden change in air pressure from explosions are the leading cause of the closed-head injuries.

In many instances in soldiers examined, symptoms did not occur until months after a soldier’s return, and in others, symptoms resolved themselves even before a soldier got home.

The post relies on a second screening 90 to 120 days after homecoming and on input from family members and the chain of command.

“Symptoms can present themselves at different points in time. And you might ask why. I can only surmise that when a soldier returns to the United States and is subjected to the activities of daily living — traffic, making formation ... perhaps the stressors then bring some of these symptoms to light,” Cho said. “The good news in all of this is we have the mechanism to catch this.”

Capt. Matthew Staton, 30, noticed he was having symptoms after returning home from a 2003-04 deployment after surviving several improvised explosive device and bomb explosions.

“It’s like getting your bell rung,” he said of the blasts.

He relies on a digital voice recorder and palm computer to remember things. He also is quick to anger.

“It’s depressing, frustrating,” he said. “I’m a 30-year-old man.”