Policy to Mandate Head Injury Evaluations March 27, 2010
Posted by intebic in Uncategorized.Tags: ptsd, soldiers
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WASHINGTON, March 10, 2010 – Defense Department officials expect to launch a new policy in the coming months that will make head-injury evaluations mandatory for all troops who suffer possible concussions, a senior official with the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury said.
The current guidelines for treating troops with such injuries allows for them to come forward on their own. Troops in combat and in close contact with explosions or blasts make the decision on whether they need to be evaluated for concussions or head injuries.
But under the new policy, every service member exposed to such an incident will be required to seek attention. Those troops also will be required to rest and will be excluded from their unit’s mission cycle for at least 24 hours, Kathy Helmick, the senior director for traumatic brain injury at the center, said yesterday in an interview with American Forces Press Service.
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U.S. gov’t upgrading injury status of Iraq, Afghan war veterans with TBI February 28, 2010
Posted by intebic in Uncategorized.Tags: depression, ptsd, soldiers, tbi, TBI Info, veterams. veteran healthcare, veteran healthcare, veterans
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is now informing some 32,000 U.S. military personnel diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) that their injury status will be upgraded.
The department is sending written notifications to soldiers and Marines diagnosed with TBI from October 2008 to the present, notifying them that even if their condition has not changed, their injury status is being upgraded. The change of status was revealed in a Veterans Affairs study for the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
TBI — sustained by some 140,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to October last year, primarily from improvised explosive device detonations — are difficult to diagnose as they are not externally visible. Many sufferers are misdiagnosed with psychological conditions, leading to criticism that only a small number of those with TBI were being categorized properly.
In July 2007, one group of veterans sued Veterans Affairs in the U.S. District Court in California in a bid to have returning service members with TBI and post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosed properly. The suit was dismissed in June 2008, but on appeal the court recognized the need for Veterans Affairs to improve its diagnoses.
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Study Measures Will Impact Traumatic Brain Injuries on Soldiers February 28, 2010
Posted by intebic in Uncategorized.Tags: depression, ptsd, soldier, soldiers, tbi
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Imagine that you are a soldier in Afghanistan. You’re riding in the passenger seat of a U.S. Army-issued Humvee and all of a sudden there is an explosion. Next, you find yourself in an Army medical facility and the doctor stands over you and says your vehicle struck a roadside bomb, but you and your fellow soldier are fine, just a few broken bones here and there.
Before you know it you’re back to work and you feel decent. What you don’t know is that you may have a traumatic brain injury with no physical signs.
Unfortunately, this could be a true story for many soldiers fighting for the United State in Afghanistan. The brain is a very sensitive and unusual organ, and the signs of a traumatic brain injury may not show up immediately. That is why scientists for the U.S. Army Tank Research, Development, and Engineering Center and professor Joy Hirsch of Columbia University are collaborating on a study that measures brain damage in patients with these types of injuries.
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U.Michigan & Defense Department combat stigma of seeking psychological help February 12, 2010
Posted by intebic in Uncategorized.Tags: depression, football, psychological effects, ptsd, sports, tbi
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The University of Michigan Depression Center is partnering with the Real Warriors Campaign, a successful United States Department of Defense public education initiative designed to combat the stigma associated with seeking care for PTSD, depression, sleep disturbances, and traumatic brain injury. Originally geared toward servicemen and women, the partnership seeks to encourage athletes to also get the care they need, and to use their powerful voices to convey that getting help is a sign of strength.
Players on the football field have expressed similar concerns to real warriors on the battlefield, and have been rapidly learning that real strength comes from seeking help and returning to their team.
“The stigma around seeking care for PTSD, depression, TBI and related issues can be overcome”, says John Greden, M.D., executive director of the U-M Depression Center. “Players and veterans in sports, and soldiers and veterans in the military are learning that they are not alone, that treatment works, that buddies and teammates can help, and that getting help is a sign of real strength. As a center that has developed special programs specifically to help members of the military and athletes overcome these barriers, we are proud to be partnering with the Real Warriors Campaign.”
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Capito Introduces Bill to Help Veterans Suffering from Brain Injuries December 7, 2009
Posted by intebic in TBI Info.Tags: ptsd, recovery, research, soldiers, tbi, TBI Info, veteran healthcare, veterans, veterans healthcare, walter reed medical center
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As the nation honors America’s military men and women, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., announced Wednesday she has re-introduced legislation designed to improve access to care for rural veterans suffering from traumatic brain injury.
Capito’s bill, the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Access to Care Act, would establish state-level pilot programs with partnerships between local medical professionals and the Department of Veterans Affairs, enabling local providers to support treatment efforts for geographically-isolated veterans.
Currently there are only four Veterans Affairs facilities equipped to undertake TBI treatment, which necessitates lengthy travel for those in need of treatment. The Richmond, Virginia medical facility is the nearest treatment center for West Virginia veterans.
“Traumatic brain injury is one of the most challenging afflictions facing our military men and women,” says Capito. “Treatment is extensive and specialized, placing an incredibly difficult burden on military families who must often travel great distances for treatment. My legislation is geared towards easing that burden by creating avenues for treatment closer to home.”
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DARPA Wants Cryogenic Technology on the Battlefield to Freeze Traumatic Brain Injury in its Tracks December 7, 2009
Posted by intebic in TBI Info.Tags: ptsd, recovery, research, soldier, soldiers, veteran healthcare
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Blasts from improvised explosives and RPGs can cause traumatic brain injuries among soldiers, which can leave permanent damage. Sounds like a challenge for the Pentagon’s mad science lab DARPA, which has issued a call for a brain freeze device that could stop the after-effects of brain trauma in its tracks, Wired’s Danger Room reports.
DARPA’s proposal describes traumatic brain injury as the “signature wound of the War on Terror,” and notes the significant boost in the injuries due to the common danger of roadside bombs. A blast inflicts a double whammy on the brain: first from the initial moment of trauma when tissues and blood vessels become stretched or torn, and second from the slower secondary damage as cellular processes and biochemical cascades ripple outward and result in more brain cell death. Such secondary damage can become irreversible in as little as 90 minutes, and accounts for the most chronic trauma damage cases and deaths.
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Number of wounded troops in Afghanistan increasing December 7, 2009
Posted by intebic in TBI Info.Tags: ptsd, soldiers, TBI Info, veteran healthcare, veterans
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Far from winding down, the numbers of U.S. soldiers coming home wounded have continued to swell. The problem is especially acute among those fighting in Afghanistan, where nearly four times as many troops were injured in October as a year ago.
Amputations, burns, brain injuries and shrapnel wounds proliferate in Afghanistan, due mostly to increasingly potent improvised bombs targeting U.S. forces. Snipers’ bullets and mortar rounds also are to blame.
Of particular concern are the so-called hidden wounds, traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder that can have long-term side effects such as depression.
Since 2007, more than 70,000 service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury — more than 20,000 of them this year, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
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Helping our veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder… December 7, 2009
Posted by intebic in TBI Info.Tags: ptsd, soldiers, tbi, veteran healthcare, veterans healthcare
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From the Civil War to the Vietnam War, it has been called nostalgia, shell shock, soldier’s heart and battle fatigue, but today the diagnosis sounds far more clinical: post-traumatic stress disorder.
On Nov. 20, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services and held an eight-hour conference on educating and caring for the mental health needs of veterans and their families.
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PTSD Doubles Dementia Risk in Vets July 24, 2009
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There is mounting evidence that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), common among veterans returning from combat, may be associated with reduced cognitive function. Researchers are now looking at older veterans to see if PTSD increases the risk of developing dementia later in life…
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Associated With Higher Alzheimer’s/dementia Risk July 18, 2009
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Though discoveries about Alzheimer’s disease risk factors are often in the news, adults do not know about the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease risk and heart health, nor that physical activity can be protective against dementia, according to new research reported at the Alzheimer’s Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD 2009) in Vienna…
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