After Injury, Fighting to Regain a Sense of Self… August 16, 2009
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WEEDSPORT, N.Y. — Adam Lepak looked over at his mother and said, “You’re fake.”
It was a Tuesday in July, late, and Cindy Lepak could see that her 19-year-old son was exhausted. Long days like this one, with hours of physical therapy and memory drills — I had a motorcycle accident, I hit my head and have trouble remembering new things, I had a motorcycle accident — often left him making these accusations.
“What do you mean ‘fake,’ Adam?” she said.
He hung his head. “You’re not my real mom,” he said. His voice changed. “I feel sorry for you, Cindy Lepak. You live in this world. You don’t live in the real world.”
Doctors have known for nearly 100 years that a small number of psychiatric patients become profoundly suspicious of their closest relationships, often cutting themselves off from those who love them and care for them. They may insist that their spouse is an impostor; that their grown children are body doubles; that a caregiver, a close friend, even their entire family is fake, a duplicate version…
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TBI Treatment August 16, 2009
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The Brain Injury Research Center (BIRC) in the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery has been awarded a $4.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to research new ways to heal the brain after a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Specifically, researchers will be looking at how to best feed the brain the nutrients it needs to optimize recovery.
The standard thinking for many years has been that after a TBI, the brain lies in a docile state or coma and thus requires very little energy. But research from the BIRC now shows that the brain’s response to trauma requires enormous amounts of energy.
“Many patients with a traumatic brain injury exhibit hyperglycemia – high blood sugar – by the time they arrive in the ER,” said David Hovda, PhD, professor of neurosurgery and director of the BIRC. “So the standard protocol was to give the patient insulin to tightly control the levels of glucose that would take them to normal. For many regions of the injured brain, this may be the wrong thing to do.”…
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Bill Seeks Mental Screening for Troops… August 16, 2009
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In an attempt to reduce suicides among combat veterans, a bill pending in the Senate would expand mental-health monitoring of those who fight our nation’s wars.
The bill would require all active-duty soldiers and reservists to be evaluated by a mental-health professional before deploying to a war zone, after their return and before they head back to combat.
“When I hear of young men and women whose life is ended too soon or who have to silently battle behavioral-health issues, it absolutely devastates me,” said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who submitted the legislation, along with 16 co-sponsors…
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VA works to prevent veterans from repeating crimes.. August 16, 2009
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DENVER — Bracing for an influx of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Veterans Affairs has launched an ambitious effort to locate veterans who’ve had minor brushes with the law and offer them treatment to try to prevent repeat crimes.
The VA started its Veterans Justice Outreach Program early this year — before public attention intensified on a handful of Fort Carson, Colo.-based soldiers accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter after returning from a deployment where they faced intense combat. Most of the soldiers had been arrested for domestic violence, assault, illegal gun possession, and alcohol and drug charges before the slayings…
First validated TBI clinic vital to service members… August 16, 2009
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In July Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center’s Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic was presented with their official validation plaque resulting from an inspection by staff from the Proponency Office for Rehabilitation and Reintegration in February..
The inspection and resulting plaque presentation represents full validation to the DDEAMC TBI Clinic, making it the first Category I, fully validated Clinic in the US Army.
The focus of the TBI Clinic is to provide medical evaluation and treatment to assist a TBI patient in becoming as independent as possible…
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For Veterans, a Weekend Pass From Homelessness… August 16, 2009
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The future mix of homeless veterans was signaled here last weekend at Stand Down, an annual three-day tent city that provides respite and aid to former members of the armed forces whose lives have collapsed.
The number of homeless veterans who made their way to a high school’s athletic fields for the gathering reached a record high, some 950 compared with last year’s record of 830. The job-devouring recession is pushing up the numbers, but organizers said they were also starting to see younger veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, some with traumatic brain injuries or psychological stresses, who had fallen through the safety nets with unusual speed.
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Soldiers Into Students – Veterans, Educators Try to Ease Transition… August 16, 2009
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The new GI Bill went into effect this month, and President Obama marked that milestone last week when he addressed about 350 military veterans and advocates on the campus of George Mason University.
“It’s driven by the same simple logic that drove the first GI Bill,” Obama said of the legislation, passed by Congress last year and expected to help a quarter-million veterans pay for school by 2011. “You pick the school; we’ll help pick up the bill.”..
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Head injury could sideline Ohio State’s Moeller… August 16, 2009
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Ohio State may have lost a starting linebacker before the first block and tackle of preseason camp.
Tyler Moeller, a fourth-year junior who was expected to start at strong side linebacker for the Buckeyes this fall, will probably miss the entire season because of a head injury, the Columbus Post-Dispatch reported Monday…
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Is Traumatic Brain Injury Causing Homelessness? August 16, 2009
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Too many people associate homelessness with substance abuse, laziness, craziness and extreme societal rejection, but one survey has reported that over 50 percent of the homeless in Toronto, Canada are afflicted with traumatic brain injury.
The survey was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and was led by Dr. Stephen Hwang from the Centre for Research on Inner City Health at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital. The study consisted of 303 females and 601 males…
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VUOTO: VA accused of waste, cover-up July 24, 2009
Posted by intebic in Uncategorized.Tags: soldiers, tbi, walter reed medical center
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“A lie cannot live forever,” said neurologist Robert Van Boven, quoting a phrase used by Martin Luther King and others going back to Victorian-era writer Thomas Carlyle.
Dr. Van Boven was removed in February 2008 from his position as director of Veterans Affairs’ Brain Imaging and Recovery Laboratory (BIRL) in Austin, Texas, after months of asking why the facility had spent millions of dollars to study traumatic brain injury without treating a single veteran.
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