Blast injuries. Combat concussions. More and more active duty military personnel are experiencing traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and polytrauma (multiple physical injuries) due to the current nature of war. Rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices, and landmines are commonplace in today’s combat, causing these types of severe physical injuries and increasing the need for medical and support services for the injured active duty military personnel and their families.

This week, you analyze the prevalence and the severity of brain injury and the effects of TBI on active duty military personnel, veterans, and their families.

 

Review the resources and read the article “Soldiers Continue Recovery From ‘Invisible Wounds.’” Examine the short-term and long-term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI). This article is a starting point for you to begin to gain knowledge about active duty military personnel and veterans experiencing TBI.

Note: If this link is not operational, use the Internet to find a story of an active duty military personnel diagnosed with TBI and analyze the short-term and long-term effects of TBI.

Post a description of one short-term and one long-term effect of TBI on an active duty military personnel or on a veteran. Explain one long-term societal effect of military personnel and veterans with TBI. Provide one recommendation for services (e.g., advocacy, awareness, or support) that you might make to help active duty military personnel with TBI. Select two articles from the Walden Library to support your response.

Be sure to support your post with specific references to the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.

https://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=119593

 

Soldiers Continue Recovery From ‘Invisible Wounds’

By Elaine Sanchez
Brooke Army Medical Center Public Affairs

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, March 21, 2013 – Army Spc. Kevin Wear was riding in an armored vehicle in Afghanistan last summer when a roadside bomb exploded, tearing the vehicle into three pieces and killing three of the five passengers inside.

But Wear remembers nothing of that incident or anything that happened a few weeks prior. The blast injured his leg and caused a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma for about a week and a half.

“I woke up in San Antonio,” he said, referring to Brooke Army Medical Center, “and was in an amnesia state for a month or so.”

Nearly a year later, Wear still is coming to terms with the aftermath of his TBI. He struggles with short- and long-term memory, but has learned “tricks,” such as association and rhyming, that help him get by.

“Sometimes I have trouble, but I play it off,” he said in an interview at the BAMC Warrior Transition Battalion headquarters. “All five of my kids believe I’m Superman – the toughest, strongest guy in the world. I just want to keep that as long as I can. I don’t want to feel different – or less.”

Wear is one of the more than 266,000 military members who suffered a TBI from 2000 to 2012, according to Brainlinemilitary.org. Additionally, each year, a reported 1.7 million civilian brain injuries occur in the United States.

TBI is defined as a disruption of function in the brain from an external force, such as a car accident or, as in Wear’s case, an explosion. Brain injuries range in severity from a mild TBI, also known as a concussion, to a severe injury that involves an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia.

Symptoms of a TBI typically are divided into three basic categories, explained Dr. Jan Kennedy, a neuropsychologist and senior scientific director for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, Department of Neurology, San Antonio Military Medical Center. These include cognitive, such as issues with memory and attention; emotional, such as depression, anxiety and irritability; and physiological, including headaches, dizziness and problems sleeping.

Army Spc. Rizaldy DeJesus refers to TBI as an “invisible wound” that’s difficult for others to understand.

The Army medic was injured in Afghanistan in July 2011 while on a convoy delivering supplies to a forward operating base. The convoy was moving along a narrow hillside road when an explosion knocked the vehicle DeJesus was riding in down a two-story cliff.

DeJesus woke up in Germany with a fractured ankle and back, dislocated hip, and a TBI. Through individual and group therapy he’s come a long way since, he said, but still has trouble with his memory and is easily irritated. “It’s a long process of healing,” he said. “I see myself improving slowly and am thankful the Army has a really good program for TBI.”

On the battlefield, soldiers who experience a potentially concussive event, such as feeling dazed after an explosion, must undergo a medical evaluation and a minimum rest period. Experts are on hand in theater to identify and treat service members, and to refer them to a higher level of care if needed.

More than 90 percent of those with a TBI will fully recover; however, recovery hinges on the severity and location of the injury, Kennedy explained. In all cases, experts agree that a patient’s best course of action is to seek care as quickly as possible, since rest is a vital component in concussive recovery.

Education is another vital component, Kennedy noted, and the Army is working to raise awareness about brain injuries, including prevention, diagnosis and treatment. According to the Office of the Surgeon General, the Army has invested more than $800 million in research and development activities to better identify and treat brain injuries.

At BAMC, several neuroimaging studies are under way to improve diagnostic and detection capability, Kennedy said, and experts at the TBI Clinic here are looking at cognitive rehabilitation’s benefit for service members who have suffered a mild TBI.

Leaders also are working to combat the stigma that some service members attach to seeking care. They encourage battle buddies and family members to keep an eye out for any changes following a head injury and to encourage soldiers to seek care.

Army Sgt. Edward Matayka said he doesn’t want to be treated differently because his brain “got rattled.” The Vermont National Guard medic lost both legs and suffered a spinal injury, back and facial fractures, a TBI and a stroke after a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle in Afghanistan in July 2010.

Having a brain injury “doesn’t mean you’re broken,” he said. “You just have to learn mechanisms to deal with it and to deal with the different way you may have to process stuff. I’m still the same person.”

Wear said he gets frustrated at times, particularly when he forgets a name or how to spell a word, but doesn’t let that deter him. He practices memory tricks and studies words up to two hours a night to speed his recovery.

“I don’t want people to think any differently about me,” he said. As a dad and as a soldier, “I feel like there’s a lot more I can do.”

Journal entry Review the scenario, and then use the following to create a journal entry. Journal entries provide the writer with an opportunity to collect their thoughts and reflect in a less formal way than they would in a traditional essay. Although a journal is not a traditional essay in format or tone, all of the elements necessary for good writing still apply, including attention to grammar, thorough proofreading and spelling checks, and presenting views in an organized paragraph structure.

Scenario

You have been asked by your company to talk to a group of political leaders here in the United States. As you scan the crowd, you see only a few women in the audience. One week later, you give the same talk in Sweden and find there are a lot more women in the crowd. You ask yourself why.

Review the following statistics for women in government:

• In the United States in 2015, women held 20% of the seats in Congress (Rutgers, 2017).
• In 2014, women held 43.6% of the seats in the Swedish Parliament (Sweden, 2017).

Parental leave was a hot topic in the United States during the recent election. Parental leave policies may affect the representation of women in politics. Review the following statistics on parental leave (Popovich, 2014):

• The United States currently offers 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave to working mothers.
• Sweden offers 60 weeks of paid leave, which can be split between both mothers and fathers.

The following chart provides a visual comparison of paid maternal leave as of 2015 of several countries including the United States and Sweden (Popovich, 2014):