Globe and Mail - Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan suffer high rate of brain trauma

Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan were hospitalized for traumatic brain injury between 2006 and 2009 at almost three times the rate of Americans fighting there in earlier years before the war escalated, according to a National Defence study obtained by The Globe and Mail…

“It has often been called ‘the invisible wound,’ ” said Alain Ptito, a researcher at Montreal’s Neurological Institute who sat on a Canadian Forces Health Sciences Advisory Panel on TBI. “The numbers may be higher.”…

But if anything, experts such as Dr. Ptito fear officials may be underestimating the seriousness of brain injuries among Canadian troops. The military reported that 40 per cent of soldiers initially diagnosed with TBI were returned to duty, but Dr. Ptito cautioned that standard MRI tests may miss important symptoms. More sophisticated scans called “functional” MRIs, available in Canada, measure blood flow in the brain while the patient is active.

“If you use more sensitive tools, you find there are cerebral dysfunctions and the numbers will go up,” Dr. Ptito said.