AUGUSTA – Traumatic brain injuries are common among wounded soldiers returning from Iraq, but they’re also commonly misdiagnosed or undetected, according to veterans’ activists and Maine’s congressional delegation.

For some soldiers, the injury is graphically obvious.

“They’re the ones with part of their skull missing,” Ron Brodeur, state inspector for the Maine Department of Disabled American Veterans, said during a forum Wednesday on soldiers’ health care.

For others, the traumatic brain injury, or TBI in military parlance, presents itself in subtle ways, said Jack Sims, director of the Togus Veterans Administration Medical Center.

“Our providers are now aware of TBI and are on the lookout for it. We’re trying to be much more proactive in recognizing these things than we were in past conflicts,” he said.

Brodeur and Sims were among 50 people who met Wednesday at the Maine Veterans Home in Augusta to discuss medical care, benefits and other services for veterans.

Maine’s congressional delegation supports efforts to improve treatment for TBI and expand support for the injury’s victims and their families.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, joined Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in introducing the Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act of 2007 that would screen soldiers for TBI. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also introduced bipartisan legislation to improve treatment for TBI and expand support for the injury’s victims and their families.

“It definitely is a serious problem because you cannot visually see it,” said Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine. “A lot of men and women who are currently serving in the military could have some form of traumatic brain injury and be unaware of it. The way helmets are designed now, the shock from an explosion goes up inside the helmet and then comes back down. TBI has definitely become the signature wound of this war.”

The number of Maine veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who could ultimately have to deal with TBI remains unknown, Brodeur said.

Some war injury analysts, he said, maintain that as many as 15 percent of those who have served or will serve in Iraq will show some symptoms of the injury.

About 2,000 soldiers from the Maine National Guard have served or are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. “So that would be at least 300 as a possibility,” he said.