The Pentagon Knows It Has a Problem with Veterans with TBI. New Data Shows its Extent.

Over a 15-year period, from 2006 – 2020, veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) had suicide rates 56 percent higher than veterans without TBI and three times higher than the US adult population.  This staggering statistic was published last month in JAMA Neurology. 

The suffering of our veterans who are in such great pain with TBI is tragic.  Imagine the scores of brave men and women who served their country but are now hurt so badly that suicide is their only escape from immense pain.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is aware of its TBI problem.  They have identified TBI as “one of the invisible wounds of war and one of the signature injuries of troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq.” The Pentagon is taking concussions seriously by helping to educate veterans and through work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop implants to help with TBI memory loss.  However, as Frank Larkin, chair of Warrior Call, points out in Military Times, “The Pentagon’s blueprint for curtailing military suicides … is noteworthy for what it lacks –– scant if any reference to preventing, better diagnosing and treating traumatic brain injuries …”

The statistics on veteran suicides should be setting off more alarms at DOD.  Such high suicide rates scream out the need to move with great urgency to not only prevent TBIs but also to improve long-term outcomes that ease the suffering of our soldiers and veterans with these conditions. 

Oxeia is looking to work with the federal government and the military establishment to advance the study of treatment for TBI that will benefit not only our wounded warriors but also the greater population.  We have been bringing our case to Capitol Hill over the past couple of years and believe we are inching closer to finding an effective cure for mild TBI.

We applaud the work the DoD is doing to ease the pain of our veterans.  Oxeia would like more to be done to bring service men and women the relief they need.  The treatment for TBI may just be at our doorstep.