Military fails on brain-test follow-ups

[unhappycamper]

Military fails on brain-test follow-ups
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has failed to comply with a congressional directive to give all troops tests before and after they serve in combat to measure their thinking abilities and uncover possible brain injuries, military records show.

More than 562,000 tests of troops taken before they deployed have not been readministered on their return by military health officials, the records show. That means the Pentagon could be missing thousands of cases of brain injury, says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., who helped write the 2008 order.

"This is a total failure," says Pascrell, co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Brain Injury Task Force. "We're failing to find TBI (traumatic brain injury) and post-traumatic stress disorder in an era when the military is trying to find and assist folks who need it."

Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, and other Army officials say the test is flawed and no better than a "coin flip."

The test, called the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM), produces too many false positive results, said Lt. Col. Michael Russell, head of the Army's ANAM program.

[USArmyParatrooper]

1. I took the test before my last deployment

But I didn't take a follow on test because I didn't sustain a head injury. I wonder which units did not and why.