Shaken Troops Face New Foe: Early Dementia



By Sharon Weinberger September 21, 2011 | 6:06 pm | Categories: Army and Marines

The most devastating impact of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be on soldiers’ brains, and many of the injured likely don’t even know it. At least not yet. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110920/ ... 7390a.html

As I describe in the new issue of Nature, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that these injured troops, who could easily number in the hundreds of thousands, face a heightened risk of early-onset dementia, and other diseases that attack the brain.

Worse, by Pentagon officials’ own admission, the military effectively ignored many cases of mild Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI, primary caused by exposure to roadside bombs, for the better part of six years. One study, published in 2008 by a group of Army researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine, even downplayed the role of mild TBI, suggesting that people should use the word “concussionâ€