Question:
I have read this piece many times and sometimes it seemed this is what the Doc. was saying). OTOH, it also seems that he uses "mild brain injury" and "TBI" interchangably (did anyone else get this impression?. I think TBI is knocked unconscious, so they can't recall the details (now we all know that some people with "mild" BI do NOT necessarily get knocked unconscious, right?), but is this meant to imply that if they get conked, but not hard enough to get knocked out, they do not have a brain injury, just PTSD?

Answer: I just found the following post by going into the BIA site and clicking on the entry for "Neuropsychology" (their only entry under this heading by the way). What caught my eye was the statement in the last paragraph about the implications of the study, namely, The implications of these findings are 1)that PTSD patients should not be informed that they have a brain injury sincethis could serve to worsen the PTSD . . .

I'm curious if this is common practice and/or if there are other situations (with respect to concommitant mental health or psychological diagnoses) that would warrant witholding infomation about a possible brain injury. That is, if I have interpreted this correctly. I interpreted this to mean that it was possible that a person had both a brain injury and PTSD, but that knowledge about the BI would make the PTSD worse.

Now, a lot of the folks I work with get services from Voc. Rehab. on the basis of the diagnosis and the reports written about them. If a doctor does not share a BI diagnosis -- or even a "possible" BI diagnosis, wouldn't this adversely affect the kinds of services other agencies might be inclined to offer (eg. offering mental health services as opposed to compensatory skills training, for example) -- again these questions are all based on the assumption that I understood the doctor to say that there are situations in which a person should not be told they have or may have a brain injury.

This discussion is very interesting, no doubt to all concerned. I have someone staying with me suffered PTSD, as well as knowing my friend with TBI. The symptoms are SIMILAR, but they are NOT the same. I am not playing with words here. Paul's symptoms are a direct result of the injury to his brain. John's (PTSD)symptoms are a more 'in the mind'. I do not wish to sound to disparaging here. Far from it. His memory is affected because 'flashbacks' he suffers, the anxiety and distress reduce his attention span. Rather like when one has a severe migraine, the pain gets in the way of concentrating but it is not brain damage causing the problem. Paul's IS because the memory site in his brain is damaged. Tiredness in both is a result of anxiety.