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The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center Releases New Brain Injury Guidelines
Source: West Point Military Academy
The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center released new clinical recommendations for traumatic brain injuries last week, hoping to assist service members who have suffered mild TBI or concussions in returning to their normal life. Their recommendations will be available for military and civilian health care professionals, and can be downloaded from the DVBiC website.
Traumatic brain injuries are often called the signature injury of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, as nearly one out of five soldiers were diagnosed with brain injuries during their deployment. Over 287,000 U.S. military members have suffered a traumatic brain injury since 2000.
Army Col. Sidney Hinds, II, national director of The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, said:
The Progressive Return to Activity Following mTBI Clinical Recommendations are the first of its kind and are tailored for primary care managers and rehabilitation providers. These recommendations offer a standardized medical approach for service members who have sustained a mTBI to return to activity in a manner which facilitates optimal recovery. We created these clinical recommendations because of a need identified by our Armed Services and Veterans Affairs stakeholders. The mTBI patient was our focus and we vetted these recommendations with our stakeholders before publication.
The DVBiC consulted academic experts, sports concussion clinicians, and military TBI efforts in the creation of these guidelines, and they plan to assist health care providers to monitor patients as they recover.
