b'Congressional Testimony Puts FocusOn TBIs Caused by Weapons TrainingBy Stephen SpotswoodWASHINGTON, DCWhile traumatic brain in- exposure, and updating weapon information with jury (TBI) and its impact on the lives of service- blast exposure-related characteristics. membersandveteranshavereceivedconsider- McBirneyevensuggestedthatDoDconsider able attention, most of that attention has focusedembeddingresearcherswithintrainingand on TBIs incurred during combat.deployed units.An unknown but considerable number of TBIAsourweaponssystemcontinuetobemore cases are received not from explosions in com- advancedandincreasinglypowerful,low-level bat but from the blast overpressure yielded byblasts will remain an increasing challenge for ser-firing large weapons, however, including thosevicemembers,shesaid.Addressingtheissue fired in training, according to a new report. Thisof repeated exposure to these blasts necessitates overpressurecanhaveanaccumulatedimpactactionandcollaborationbetweenDoDandthe over time, resulting in brain injury that can eas- research community. ily go unrecognized.SomemembersofCongresshavetakenthe According to a RAND Corp. study, servicemem- RAND studys recommendations to heart and are bers can be in danger of developing a TBI evenurging DoD to move to prevent these slow-devel-when firing weapons within their recommendedoping TBIs from occurring.limits. The study found that up to 32% of blasts[These wounds] are invisible, and they affected experienced by breaching instructors exceeded thethousandsofservicemembers,causinghead-recommended exposure limit.aches,seizures,hallucinationsand,ultimately, Thereremainsalackofevidencelinkingincreasedrisksfordepressionandsuicide, repeated exposure to injury, explained SamanthadeclaredSubcommitteeChairSen.Elizabeth McBirney, PhD, a RAND policy analyst, at a SenateWarren (D-MA). In just three months in 2023, Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel hear- DoD provided TBI treatment to servicemembers ing recently. One reason for this is the difficultynearly 50,000 times. The more we learn, the more of diagnosis. The nature of low-level blast expo- we come to understand that blast exposure is an sure and the fact that it is not one single event thatongoing threat to the health of individual service-causes an issue. [That] complicates injury recogni- members, well-being, morale and readiness of our tion. Symptoms typically do not manifest immedi- entire force.ately. Additionally, injury is vastly underreportedWarren is calling on DoD to create blast exposure among servicemembers. and traumatic brain injury logs for all servicemem-There also is a lack of research into which occu- bers, to integrate these logs into their VA and DoD pational specialties are at greatest risk, she added,healthcare record and to establish mitigation strat-suggesting that some specialties, such as breachersegies specific to the servicemember roles most at and munitions range instructors, are almost cer- risk for blast overpressure. tainly among the most in danger. According to DoD leaders, the department already The two biggest recommendations that came outis working to better track the impact of long-term of the RAND analysis were the creation and main- blast exposure on servicemembers. Beginning this tenance of blast-exposure records, allowing DoDyear, new enlistees will be given regular cognitive tobettertrackthefrequencyoflow-levelblastassessments to monitor potential impacts. 50'