Satisfaction with life, global disability, neurobehavioral symptom severity, psychiatric symptom severity and sleep impairment were worse in patients with concussive blast TBI compared with the combat-deployed service members without TBI, although performance on cognitive measures was no different between the two groups at the evaluation after five years, according to the article.
Risk factors for poor outcomes after five years appear to be brain injury diagnosis, preinjury intelligence, motor strength, verbal fluency and neurobehavioral symptom severity at one year, the authors report.
"Together these findings indicate progression of symptom severity beyond one year after injury. Many service members with concussive blast TBI experience evolution rather than resolution of symptoms from the one- to five-year outcomes. Even a small percentage of combat-deployed controls appeared to experience worsening over time. In both groups, this finding appears to be driven more by psychiatric symptoms than by cognitive deficits. ... We believe that by being informed from longitudinal studies such as this one, the medical community can be proactive in combatting the potentially negative and extremely costly effect of these wartime injuries," the article concludes.