Features of blast-induced traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury, despite its prevalence and study, is the most urgent issue of medicine in clinical, social and military-medical significance. In Russia, about 500 thousand people receive a traumatic brain injury every year, and the damage to the country’s economy exceeds 500 billion rubles a year. Traumatic brain injury is damage by mechanical energy to the skull and intracranial contents (brain, meninges, vessels, cranial nerves), accompanied by clinical symptoms and, in most cases, morphological changes. Recently, blast-induced traumatic brain injury has acquired particular importance, which is due to the change in modern tactics of warfare and the predominance of explosive trauma in the structure of all injuries. The features of blast-induced traumatic brain injury are associated with a variety of factors affecting a person (shock wave, light, heat radiation, fragments, etc.). Such a multifactorial effect on a person makes it difficult to identify a blast-induced traumatic brain injury, especially a brain concussion. This is due to a possible combination of damage to different organs and systems of a person during an explosion, which can simulate or mask a brain concussion. When diagnosing a traumatic brain injury, it is especially important to assess the circumstances and information from witnesses of the event, which often presents a certain complexity in the conditions of hostilities. Currently, methods for detecting symptoms of instability, visual and disorders of other sensory systems involved in maintaining balance are considered as a promising direction for the diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury. It is also important to note that patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury have a risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases. All this further emphasizes the relevance of traumatic brain injury and the existing need to develop an optimal algorithm for the examination of such patients.