Brent Masel, M.D., medical director of the Brain Injury Association of America, authored a paper entitled “Brain Injury as a Chronic Disease” in which he presented the strong argument that traumatic brain injury should be thought of as a chronic disease. In the white paper he laid out the long term consequences of TBI, including increased mortality and the increased incidence of sequelae from TBI. Nevertheless, defense courtroom doctors continue to argue that mild traumatic injury is self limiting and does not result in long term problems.
A new study from the University of Toronto, titled “Risk of Suicide after a Concussion,” assessed the long-term risk of suicide after concussion. Dr. Michael Fralick and his colleagues performed a longitudinal cohort analysis of adults with the diagnosis of a concussion in Ontario, Canada from April 1, 1992 to March 31, 2012, a 20 year period. Severe cases that resulted in hospitalization were excluded.