As reported by US News & World Report, a penetrating traumatic brain injury may increase an injury victim’s risk of developing epilepsy even later in life.
The research and data has come by way of looking at soldiers who have suffered serious traumatic brain injuries. And what researchers have found is that when a soldier suffer such an injury the risk of epilepsy went up.
Here are the numbers: the study looked at and evaluated 199 Vietnam War veterans. Each had had a penetrating traumatic brain injury. Most had suffered the injury about 35 years earlier. The veterans were then given intelligence tests and brain scans to uncover lesions – these are signs of trauma to the brain.
87 veterans had developed post-traumatic epilepsy. And, in 11 of the cases, the epilepsy didn’t show up for 14 years after the TBI. And the team also discovered that the type of seizure that the veterans suffered changed over time; some became more severe and even causing loss of consciousness.
This research and these findings could potentially have great consequences for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as personal injury victims who suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI).
