Researchers are trying to determine whether several Canadian veterans suffer from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, also known as CTE, a disorder previously found in the brains of professional football and hockey players after their deaths.
CTE It is often accompanied by psychiatric symptoms that researchers say could lead to suicidal thoughts. However, little is known scientifically about a possible link, nor about how widespread CTE is among veterans.
Standing inside a brain imaging lab at Toronto’s Center for Addiction and Mental Health, researcher Isabelle Boileau says it’s possible for members of the armed forces who have been exposed to explosions to suffer from CTE.
The challenge is detection. Currently, CTE can only be discovered once the person has died. Boileau leads a research study examining traumatic brain injuries in military veterans. So far, about 25 people have volunteered to participate. She hopes more people will join.
“There are certain documented cases of (military) individuals who died by suicide and who had evidence in their brain that they had CTE,” Boileau said.
A report on military suicides released in 2021 highlighted that, over the previous decade, 191 Canadian military personnel died by suicide. By comparison, 158 service members died in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014.
Brendan Hynes served in the Canadian Army for almost 30 years. (Image courtesy of Brendan Hynes)
Brendan Hynes served as a member of the Canadian military for almost three decades. For 11 of those years, he was a member of JTF2, Canada’s premier special operations force. Hynes, deployed to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, estimates that he has been exposed to approximately two thousand explosives.
He says the physical toll of working with explosives is similar to “being in a boxing match every day,” although he never thought his job in the military would take the toll it did on his brain.
While still enlisted, he began to have problems with his concentration and temper. After being discharged, the father of two almost committed suicide. She remembers thinking about it one day while driving home from shopping with her daughters: “I was going to go home to my kids and I came up with a plan about how I was going to deal with it, how I was going to end my life.” , he claimed.
“That institutional neglect that our soldiers and veterans suffer, I say, is one of the biggest factors that we see in the veteran suicide epidemic,” Hynes says.
In a written statement to CTV News, Canada’s Department of Defense told CTV News that they welcome the investigation being conducted and are doing their part to implement new security procedures, saying in part that “the unique nature of injuries resulting from military deployment creates specific challenges. for both CAF personnel and the medical community responsible for providing combat casualty treatment and post-deployment care.”
Hynes says more needs to be done. He is learning about too many members of the military who have not received the support they need.
“Someone, [from the military] About every four to six months, those who I know…who I’m close to, take their own lives,” Hynes said.
Hynes credits the love and support of his wife and daughters as one of the only reasons he is still here to tell his story.
Brendan Hynes credits his family’s support for helping him overcome his suicidal ideation. (Image courtesy of Brendan Hynes)
The former special forces soldier is calling for more support from the Canadian military for those suffering from traumatic brain injury.
CTV News asked the Department of Defense if they had followed any recent recommendations from medical research to prevent brain trauma in members of the military.
“While multiple brain injury studies have been published with varying conclusions over the past decade, the Department of National Defense (DND) has erred on the side of caution by lowering training exposure limits in terms of bullet counts with high caliber weapons.” , and increase the safe distance to explosives during training,” the department wrote in an email.
“Several research initiatives are still underway to better understand the pathophysiology of brain injury (whether acute or repetitive), with the goal of preventing and early diagnosing injuries.”
With files from The Canadian Press