Veteran’s Affairs To Provide Traumatic Brain Injury Testing

On behalf of Lovett Law Firm posted in Brain Injury on Friday, June 17, 2016.

Traumatic brain injuries can affect you in many ways, from impacting your concentration to causing your personality to change. These injuries can usually be treated at least in some way, but they need to be understood to receive the most out of treatment. If you’re not diagnosed because you see the wrong kind of doctor or aren’t referred to a specialist when you should have been, then that’s a concern that you could take to your attorney.

In Texas, it’s been reported that up to 3,000 veterans may be able to have traumatic brain injury exams a second time because of not receiving the best care or diagnostic treatments the first time around. There are around 25,000 people around the nation who are eligible for the exams, because Veterans Affairs admitted that unqualified doctors had done the initial exams on those individuals. Using an unqualified doctor means they may have been misdiagnosed and living with symptoms of a greater injury.

These injuries are invisible; you can’t look at the brain itself to see the injury without an MRI or other kinds of scans. The problem is that these injuries are also debilitating; they can make it impossible to work and may affect all aspects of a veteran’s life, from social problems to struggling to live on his or her own.

A professional evaluation is needed to allow the veteran to claim proper disability benefits. Veteran’s Affairs requires a physiatrist, neurosurgeon, neurologist or psychiatrist to test for a traumatic brain injury; these are among the only specialists who can identify the injuries they cause.

Source: WFAA 8 ABC, “Nearly 3,000 Texas veterans get brain injury re-exams,” Jason Trahan, June 01, 2016