Tag Archives: Veteran’s Affairs

A Dangerous TBI Two-Way Street

A traumatic brain injury doesn’t just raise your risk of later neurological disorders; preexisting neurological disorders may raise the risk of brain injury, concludes a recent 2026 study from the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

Diagram showing circular relationship between brain injury and epilepsy with arrows indicating feedback loop and mutual exacerbation of seizures and brain damage

Published June 17, 2026. in the journal Neurology, the Department of Defense-supported study tracked more than 55,000 older veterans. Scientists found that traumatic brain injury was tied to higher rates of stroke, dementia, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease both before and after the injury. “Our findings raise the possibility that… [pre-existing brain diseases] are themselves risk factors for TBI in older people,” said study author Carrie Peltz, PhD, of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

In the year before a TBI, older veterans were about three times more likely to have been diagnosed with stroke, dementia, or Parkinson’s and more than four times more likely to have epilepsy. After a TBI, they were roughly twice as likely to have a stroke or epilepsy. This results greatly build on an Oxford Academic, PubMed-accessible, 2025 study that found, “Among those with TBI, patients with pre-injury dementia had particularly high chronic mortality.” While causality has not firmly been medically defined, the study’s results are clear.

Congress Has Been Flying Blind on Veteran Brain Injury Spending for Years

Shiny golden dollar sign with stacks of bills and coins behind

The Special Disabilities Capacity Report is Congress’s primary tool for deciding how much to invest in VA’s TBI treatment infrastructure. If the numbers feeding that decision are wrong, the veterans who depend on that care pay the price.

A February 2026 review by the VA Office of Inspector General revealed that in FY 2023, the VA reported the wrong financial data for traumatic brain injury, using obligations rather than actual expenditures, thereby overstating actual TBI spending. More so, they failed to report TBI spending at both the geographic service area and national levels as required by law. The DVA Office of Inspector General’s Report 25-01863-31 also determined that VA’s capacity data did not capture community care services or the extent to which bed capacity was used at its specialized rehabilitation centers.

Pointedly, these data errors are the same as those that have been flagged in prior years. This raises questions about whether Congress receives an accurate picture of VA’s TBI treatment infrastructure. As Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Chairwoman of the House VA Health Subcommittee, stated at a March 2026 oversight hearing: “Wrong data takes resources away from [other] areas of need.”

VA Recognizes TBI Mistake: Positive, But Possibly Too Late

According to the Defense and Veteran’s Brian Injury Center (DVBIC), a cooperative between the Department of Defense and Veteran’s Affairs, “Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant health issue which affects service members and veterans during times of both peace and war.”  Given that the military recognizes that traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major problem, it is a shock that, since 2007, 25,000 veterans who are now known to suffer from traumatic brain injury were not initially diagnosed and treated for TBI.  (Tested by doctors who have been found to be unqualified, these veterans were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  PTSD is terrible, yes, but more treatable than TBI.)

Through this major error, tens of thousands of veterans were not given the appropriate medical and financial help they needed and deserved.  Fortunately, the military now realizes its mistakes and can rectify them and prevent them from happening again.  For many veterans, who have struggled for years to get the military to recognize its difficulties, though, is it too little, too late?

(To learn more about TBI and the military from past service members, visit http://www.disabledveterans.org/.)