Question:
I traumatic brain injured (TBI) patients and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. TBI patients were rendered unconscious and did not remember details of the accident. On the contrary, PTSD patients did not loose consciousness and were plagued by intrusive recollections of the accident.Am I wrong? Am I the only one with a TBI from a fall(post TBI for 40 years) and not get knocked out when I fell?

Answer: The DSM definition of PTSD requires that patients be plagued by intrusive recollections of their trauma--and there is an often used diagnostic criteria for Traumatic Brain Injury that specifies that unconciousness must occur, and the degree of severity be determined by the span of time for which there is amnesia.

So the differences were there by definition. If you have trouble following my logic, let me say it another way, All the patients who were diagnosed with PTSD were found to have symptoms consistant with a diagnosis of PTSD, while all of the patients diagnosed with TBI were found to have symptoms consistant with a diagnosis of TBI.

In yet another words, if you remembered your accident, they told you you had PTSD, if you were unconscious and forgot it, they told you you had TBI--what's more, when some muttonhead with too much education and a government grant asked the PTSD patients later, they still remembered their accident, and the ones with TBI still forgot it. If you still have trouble following my logic, don't worry, I'll bet you could still get a really nice advanced degree from those people at the University of California at Irvine.