New Department of Defense memo requires troops receive baseline cognitive testing
By Cameron Lobley
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LEWISTON, Maine (WMTW) — The U.S. Department of Defense is making a new effort to protect troops from untreated brain damage.
In the memo, the Pentagon says it will require baseline cognitive tests for anyone enlisting in service starting next year to better diagnose them later in their careers.
The memo also directs the services to provide more protective equipment during training and to increase the distance between personnel and weapon blasts.
The plan primarily focuses on “blast overpressure,” a condition associated exposure to grenade and other explosive-ordinance based training.
“There’s a wave that goes through the brain and also goes through the body, and that that wave causes very, microscopic bleeding,” says Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired Army Brigadier General. “And over time, that microscopic bleeding damages the nerves and the neurons in the brain.”
The memo comes nine months after U.S. Army Reservist Robert Card killed 18 people in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, and just weeks after a report from the U.S. Army Reserve identified multiple errors made in addressing his medical care.
A post-mortem study of Card’s brain found he had likely suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Boston University doctors, who performed the study, say the damage could have been caused by his time as a hand grenade training instructor.
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