Up to 25,000 IDF soldiers could have undiagnosed brain injuries

Some 80% of such injuries do not show up on CT head scans, Knesset panel hears.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Up to 25,000 IDF soldiers could be suffering from undiagnosed brain injuries, a Knesset committee heard Monday from experts in the field.

Prof. Rachel Grander, director of the Neuroscience Research Center at Sheba Hospital, told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s subcommittee on human resources in the IDF that 70% of the men whose head CT scans came back normal at her medical center were actually suffering from traumatic brain injury.

Six out of every 10 wounded fighters evacuated by Rescue Unit 669 to Sheba were only diagnosed through certain elevated results in a blood test.

It is estimated that 80% of such injuries do not show up on head scans, and that up to 70% of wounded, hospitalized, soldiers – some 4,400 – have some kind of hidden brain injury that is not being treated.

The committee heard additional estimates that up to 20% of combat soldiers who were not considered wounded after serving on the front lines and returning to their normal lives have brain injuries to one degree or another that have gone undiagnosed.

This would mean some 20,000 people have not been treated because they do not know there is a problem.

Fully 94% of such injuries occur from the blast wave of an explosion.

Many, if not most, soldiers in Gaza were exposed to multiple IDF bombing runs in support of their ground maneuvers.

They have also been the victims of Hamas detonations of IEDs in booby-trapped homes, streets and tunnels.

Shahar Gesundeheit, CEO and founder of the Or Community for brain-injured people and their families, who participated in the meeting, told Ynet that 70% of those wounded over the last two years of war had suffered traumatic brain injury and charged that 400 of them “are not receiving treatment.”

“There is no clear standard in Israel” for the treatment and rehabilitation of head injuries, he added, and “the time has come for an orderly, professional and uniform course of rehabilitation – one that gives those with head injuries what they deserve.”

Liat Gartman, deputy head of the Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation Division, told the committee that her division “sees great importance in promoting the treatment of head injuries.”

“This is a national challenge that requires cooperation from all systems and agencies in the country in order to create a medical and rehabilitation framework for the injured that will enable their integration in school, work and community life,” she said.