Noteboom The Law Firm

Brain Injuries and Mental Health Treatment Priorities for VA

June 28, 2010 - Military leaders testified in front of the Senate Armed Forces Committee last week and spoke to issues service members are facing. Further, they spoke to how the military is handling mental health problems and brain injuries among soldiers and veterans. Military representatives focused on specific interconnected issues they believed required not only more scientific study, but that would probably benefit from holistic preventative methods. These issues included: 

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI); and
• Suicide.

The study of the brain is a very new science. Representatives from the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, and the Army all confirmed the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are working together remarkably well in diagnosing and treating mental health issues and brain injuries. Because of this collaboration, our knowledge of these conditions is at a wholly different level than it was at the beginning of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite this, there is still much to be addressed. For example, service member suicide rates are at their highest levels ever. Both the Army and the Marines reported increases in the amount of suicides and their numbers are expected to increase.

Among active-duty service members, the number of suicides have dropped. Conversely, suicides among National Guard members and other reservists have risen. It has been suggested if there were a standardized approach to treating reserve units, these numbers would fall as well. Of all the branches, only the Marines were able to pinpoint common factors between those soldiers who killed themselves: the vast majority were between 17 and 23 years of age.

There is no single answer to these problems and more research is needed. Many programs are already in place attempting to help curtail the suicides through various means. Because accurate diagnosis of TBI and PTSD are so difficult, the result is soldiers wandering around with mental health issues, no treatment, or drugs being used as treatment that could be complicating accurate diagnosis. The lack of a definitive test for TBI also complicates the VA's ability to recognize and treat traumatic brain injuries.