Videos Inspire Those With Brain Injuries to Seek Help
The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) in Silver Spring, Md., recently released a series of videos titled A Head for the Future, which features personal stories of servicemembers and veterans who sought help for brain injuries. The video series, a multiyear initiative, encourages help-seeking behavior and promotes awareness and prevention of and recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI). “Those who’ve sustained TBIs often say they wished they’d asked for help sooner,” says Kathy Helmick, deputy director of DVBIC. “The earlier someone gets checked out, the better, and there’s no reason to wait — because help is available.” Visit
http://dvbic.dcoe.mil/aheadforth efuture to learn more.
TBI: Signs and Symptoms*
Physical: headaches, sleep disturbance, dizziness, balance problems, nausea or vomiting, fatigue, visual disturbances, sensitivity to light, ringing in the ears
Cognitive: concentration problems, temporary gaps in memory, attention problems, slowed thinking, difficulty finding words
Emotional: irritability, anxiety, depression, mood swings
brunt of an explosive blast upward toward the head, observes Vaishnavi.
Eff ects on the brain A blast wave can be especially dam- aging because it causes the brain to shake violently within the skull. When this occurs, the brain might rub against bony prominences near the frontal and temporal lobes, re- sulting in signifi cant damage. Enemy IEDs can produce a blast wave strong enough to lift an armored vehicle off the ground, but smaller blasts, such as those produced by breachers, also can cause harm. In a 2008 study by the Marine
Corps Weapons Training Battalion Dynamic Entry School that followed students and instructors over a two- week course, breachers reported severe headaches and painful muscle aches in the chest and back for days after exposure to an explosion. In addition, neurobehavioral tests con- ducted before and after the course showed indications of declining per- formance among instructors, who tend to be exposed to far more blasts than students.
Indeed, TBI can result in a host of medical issues. Of growing con- cern to doctors is the association between TBI and PTS. Because TBI often results from being within close proximity of an explosion, it’s un-
*SOURCE: DEFENSE AND VETERANS BRAIN INJURY CENTER
derstandable many servicemembers with TBI also develop PTS, notes Dr. Michael Weiner, a staff physician at the VA San Francisco medical center and creator of the Brain Health Reg- istry (
www.brainhealthregistry.org), a novel neuroscience project that collects data on brain health from volunteer participants. Treatment for patients with both TBI and PTS can be problematic because the conditions share similar symptoms, and symptoms typically guide treatment. “It can be very diffi - cult for clinicians to parse out to what extent symptoms are PTS-related and to what extent they are TBI-related,” Weiner says. “Ultimately, symptoms must be appropriately treated with various types of rehabilitation and, in some cases, with medications. You can’t treat these conditions separately — it requires an integrated treatment program.” An integrated, comprehensive ap-
proach to assessment and treatment is also key to Targeted Evaluation, Action, and Monitoring of Traumatic Brain Injury (TEAM TBI), funded by DoD and developed by the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh Medical Cen- ter’s Sports Medicine Concussion Program in collaboration with the departments of Orthopaedic Sur- gery, Psychology, and Neurosurgery. “TEAM TBI is a targeted evaluation
assessment strategy and manage- ment approach to chronic brain injury, predominantly mild brain injury,” explains Anthony Kontos, Ph.D., the program’s research direc- tor. “We have partnered with experts in neurosurgery, neuropsychology, brain imaging, and other disciplines to develop a comprehensive as- sessment of mild TBI in chronic cases. These are current and former military personnel who have had symptoms for six months to a year minimum who are not getting better with conventional approaches.” Patients enrolled in the program meet with an array of specialists to produce a clear, detailed picture of their injuries and defi cits, which helps clinicians develop a targeted treatment regimen based on their clinical profi les and specifi c to their individual needs, Kontos notes.
DVBIC leads the way Within DoD, the Defense and Vet- erans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), headquartered in Silver Spring, Md., has been leading the eff ort to better understand TBI for nearly 25 years. Established by Congress in 1992, DVBIC is the TBI operational com- ponent of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. “Our mission is to
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