The Defense Department plans to expand a program that transitions veterans of the war on terror in the Middle East from Pentagon health care to the Department of Veterans Affairs to include traumatic brain injuries, a signature wound of the 17-year war.

In a letter sent to Congress over the summer, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs, James N. Stewart, said the United States would expand the so-called inTransition program, which aims to provide continued care to former US troops leaving the military.

Experts say expanding the inTransition program could allow for greater access to traumatic brain injury, or TBI, care as the Pentagon tries to ensure continued health care treatment for veterans, such as developing care plans and providing access to specialists.

“My sense is that the [Department of Defense] and [Veterans Affairs] have treated TBI seriously once they understood the magnitude and implications of this signature wound of the post 9/11 wars,” said Lt. Alex Balbir, a US Navy reservist who serves as the Wounded Warrior Project’s director of independence services. “I’m guardedly optimistic about the expansion of this program.”