Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 21, 2026
System for Focal, Closed-System Central Nervous System Injury
Published on: November 29, 2024
Analysis of US Veterans Health Administration comprehensive evaluations for traumatic brain injury in Operation
Joel D Scholten1, Nina A Sayer, Rodney D Vanderploeg
1Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Program Office, Department of Veterans Affairs , Washington, DC 20422, USA. joel.scholten@va.gov
Objective:
To describe neurobehavioural symptoms in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans evaluated for traumatic brain injury (TBI) through the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) TBI screening and evaluation programme.
Design:
An observational study based on VHA administrative data for all veterans who underwent TBI Comprehensive Evaluation between October 2007 and June 2010.
Results:
55,070 predominantly white, non-Hispanic, male Veterans with a positive TBI screen had comprehensive TBI evaluations completed during the study period. Moderate-to-severe symptoms were common in the entire sample, both in those with and without a clinician-diagnosed TBI. However, the odds of reporting symptoms of this severity were significantly higher in those diagnosed with TBI compared to those without a TBI diagnosis, with odds ratios ranging from 1.35-2.21. TBI-specialty clinicians believed that in the majority of diagnosed TBI cases both behavioural health conditions and TBI contributed to patients' symptom presentation.
Conclusions:
The VHAs TBI screening and evaluation process is identifying individuals with ongoing neurobehavioural symptoms. Moderate-to-severe symptoms were more prevalent in veterans with TBI-specialty clinician determined TBI. However, the high rate of symptom reporting also present in individuals without a confirmed TBI suggest that symptom aetiology may be multi-factorial in nature.
