Study: Intensive brain rehab gets military back to work

Four in five military service members who suffer brain injuries may be able to return to military or civilian work after they get treatment at inpatient rehabilitation facilities, a UK study suggests.

Almost one-third of these service members can return to a full-time military job after intensive rehab, the study also found.

The results suggest that the costs of treatment in residential rehabilitation programs can pay off in the long run, said Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Markus Besemann, a chief of rehabilitation medicine for the Canadian Forces Health Services and a lecturer at the University of Ottawa.

“We know that the rates for returning to sustained work are generally poor for both military service members and civilians for a number of reasons,” Besemann, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

“The results of this study are encouraging in that a substantial proportion of military personnel were able to return to military-specific function with appropriate intensive rehabilitation,” Besemann added. “Although the costs of such programs are substantial, the investment pays dividends when factored out over the lifetime of the individual who is able to re-integrate the same or an alternate vocation.”

During the study period, an average of 57 patients were discharged from rehab each year. Researchers were able to contact just under half of these former patients.

Overall, 81 percent of the study participants were either working or in job training two to three years after leaving rehab, the study team reports in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, online Aug. 9.

Thirty-two percent of them returned to full-time jobs in the military within this time frame, and 40 percent had civilian jobs.