The United States military is finding new ways to limit brain injuries that are becoming a huge problem among the troops. The US Special Operations Command is now focused on new testing and blast monitors to reshape an explosive charge that reduces its blowback on troops. According to news reports, the command is now developing new ways to better protect warfighters from such blast overpressure and to evaluate their health risks, particularly during training.
“We have guys lining up to volunteer for these studies,” AP quoted retired Sgt. Maj. F.
Bowling, a former special operations medic who now works as a contractor at the command. “This is extremely important to the community. They’re very concerned about it.
” Even though the Defense Department says it does not have good data on the number of troops with blast overpressure problems, brain injuries are highly traumatic, and many are never able to recover from them. More than 20,000 service members were diagnosed with brain injuries last year. According to the Defense Department's Traumatic Brain Injury Center of Excellence - more than 20,000 service members were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries last year.
More than 500,000 have been diagnosed since 2000. Experts say traumatic brain injuries are a major cause of death and disability in the country - that happens when you hard bump, get a jolt to your head or are hit with something that penetrates the skull. These injuries usually cause both short-term and lon.