The Relationship Between Traumatic Brain Injury and Rates of Chronic Symptomatic Illness in 202 Gulf War Veterans.

Conclusions: While TBIs were uncommon during the GW, many GW veterans sustained TBIs prior or after the GW. Because TBI and GWI/CMI share some overlapping symptoms, history of TBI may appear to be associated with increased rates of chronic symptomatic illness in GW veterans if chronic symptomatic illness is defined broadly (i.e., CDC CMI or mild-moderate CMI). History of pre-GW TBI did not affect the veterans' response to exposures/experiences from the GW; however, there was suggestive evidence that veterans who sustained TBIs during the GW may have poorer functional outcomes that GW veterans without TBI or even GW veterans with non-GW-related TBIs. Future, better powered studies with randomly and systematically select participants from the larger population of GW veterans will need to confirm this finding.
PMID: 29788089 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Military Medicine - May 25, 2018 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Mil Med Source Type: research