Lack of awareness, undiagnosed victims contribute to traumatic brain injury crisis in Montana and nationwide.

Aproximately 25 people die each month from traumatic brain injury in Montana.

"It is our leading cause of death for anyone under the age of 34, and when you combine together all forms of morbidity for that age group, that number doesn’t even compare to traumatic brain injury," he said.

"And TBI is a huge drain on resources," Weber said. "This is not just a financial strain at the time of the injury, but frequently these patients require lifelong care, and that is a considerable burden for a family’s medical system, our insurance and our charitable care systems."

The issue becomes even more pressing given that many American soldiers are returning home with traumatic head injuries – and Montanans have a long, proud tradition of military service, said Laukes.

"We don’t have a lot of systems in place to track brain injuries, and we have so many veterans coming into our state who are coming home with brain injuries.

"This is a huge issue in our state and there really is a significant lack of public awareness and education about traumatic brain injury," said Cindi Laukes, spokeswoman for the Montana Neuroscience Institute http://www.mnif.umt.edu/ in Missoula. "And one of our biggest problems is that many of these injuries are going undiagnosed or under-diagnosed."

Brain Injury Association of Montana http://www.biamt.org/

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian missoulian.com

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_2516f022-5296-11e0-a25d-001cc4c002e0.html

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