Inside STAT: Brain training shows promise as a treatment for veterans’ cognitive problems after TBI

Traumatic brain injury affects some 15% of veterans and can cause lifelong complications, including memory impairment and problems with attention. In the case of 63-year-old Melissa Dengan, whose military convoy was attacked nearly 30 years ago, her TBI once caused her to forget that she left her stove on, starting a kitchen fire. Now, a new Pentagon-funded study has found that a brain training program known as BrainHQ may offer respite for veterans like Dengan. Even before she finished the 12-week training for BrainHQ, Dengan was “able to retain more information from what I read, and my long- and short-term memory problems don’t seem as severe,” she told STAT’s Sharon Begley. Read more about the program here.