The Pentagon’s new plan to track troops’ blast exposure and brain health has run into problems, watchdog says

The Pentagon has struggled to instrumentality a caller strategy meant to show work members' brain health and archive exposures to daze waves produced by weapons, a authorities watchdog found.

The Defense Department has begun requiring cognitive assessments for recently enlisted troops and active-duty unit successful jobs considered astatine precocious consequence for blast exposure. But the subject services deficiency capable staff, equipment, and different resources to complete each of the required assessments, according to a caller Government Accountability Office report released past week.

In 2024, the Pentagon directed the services to statesman search work members' imaginable exposures to blast overpressure — the forceful waves generated erstwhile definite weapons are fired aliases erstwhile explosives detonate — and group caller requirements for really acold troops should guidelines from definite weapons erstwhile they are fired. Troops who activity successful artillery, infantry, explosive ordnance disposal, and immoderate aviation jobs are among those considered astatine increased consequence of exposure, the study said.

The caller requirements came amid increasing interest that repeated vulnerability to blast waves successful training and combat tin impact encephalon health. Troops who've been exposed to blast overpressure whitethorn study headaches, slower cognitive processing, problem concentrating, and representation problems aft exposure. Repeated vulnerability tin besides lend to traumatic encephalon injury, the effects of which tin past a lifetime.

The GAO reported work personnel reactions aft exposure, pinch 1 saying aft an workout pinch breaching weaponry designed to punch a spread successful an adversary's defenses, that they felt "rattled, dizzy, and were throwing up." Another work personnel described firing a rocket launcher, telling the watchdog that it felt for illustration "taking a deed from a [football player] going 150 miles per hour."

At the aforesaid time, the Pentagon began requiring baseline cognitive tests that measurement attention, memory, and reasoning speed, allowing providers to comparison early results against individual baselines to measure really repeated vulnerability affects troops complete time.

However, search those exposures is simply a awesome challenge, the GAO determined. The Army, which has the largest organization of high-risk personnel, had started vulnerability search for little than 2% of astir 142,000 perchance exposed work members by the extremity of fiscal twelvemonth 2025, according to the report.

Army and Navy officials told the watchdog that they did not person capable business hygienists, a type of information specialist, to meet the caller requirements, though Navy officials said their specialists were spending up to 60% of their clip connected blast-overpressure hazards arsenic of January.

A one-year aviator programme for a caller cognitive appraisal instrumentality whitethorn thief pinch the military's assets issues, the study said, but the Pentagon had not documented really it would measure the tool's effect connected those assets needs.

Cognitive assessments and encephalon wellness search are important concerns for the military. While immoderate jobs person agelong faced vulnerability to encephalon injuries, the challenge of drones and missiles has exposed much troops pinch different jobs, specified arsenic those successful logistics and aesculapian providers, to blasts generated by attacks. TBIs person notably been a communal wounded successful the warfare pinch Iran.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not respond to Business Insider's petition for remark connected the GAO's findings.