Resource on Traumatic Brain Injury in Service Men

Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans

Traumatic brain injury is an acute injury of the brain, which may or may not be detected at the outset. It can be classified as either mild or severe, depending on whether loss of consciousness lasts less than or more than 30 minutes. As gun shots rank high among its causes, war veterans have high cases of traumatic brain injury. Many organizations have been advocating for the case of TBI among veterans.

The Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine

This is an organization that focuses on the traumatic brain injury that emanates from military injuries. It is a federal program and thus received federal funding. It is an organization that has brought together the efforts of three other organizations, which are the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the National Institute of Health and the Uniformed Services University. Through their combined efforts, both the members of the military as well as civilians have been provided with better diagnosis and treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury. This improved medical care has been availed to the military in the filed as well as in treatment centers; while civilians have had better care availed to them in hospitals. The researchers in the CNRM have the skills and experience to enable them focus on areas that need improvement as far as treatment, diagnosis and information that is lacking is concerned. They focus their research on TBI and Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) (CNRM, 2015).

http://www.cnrmstudies.org/

Phone: 855-TBI-CNRM *** )

American Veterans with Brain Injury

Began in 2004, the American Veterans with Brain Injury (AVBI) exists to help those veterans who have suffered brain injuries as well as give support to their families. Some of the support offered here includes the information availed to veterans on the website and the peer support offered here as well. This online resource went live in 2006. The organization was incorporated as a non-profit organization so that they could widen the scope of their activities with regard to their initial focus. As a nonprofit organization, it receives funding from various places though it has no political affiliations. Some of its donors include: the Veterans Assisting Veterans and the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses (AVBI, 2015).

http://www.avbi.org/

Address: American Veterans with Brain Injuries. 4960 Hwy 90 Box 173, Pace, Fl. 32571

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC)

DVBIC was started in 1992 and it brings together the efforts of the Brain Injury Association of America, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense. This organization has its focus on providing care for those who have experienced traumatic brain injury and are members of the military who are in active service, dependents of these and veterans. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center does this by providing high end medical care, research programs and educational initiatives geared towards supporting this group of people. It is an organization that strives to give the best care in terms of evaluation and treatment of its focus group. It received funding from the U.S. government and thus cannot be said to lean towards any political side (DVBIC, 2015). State of the art medical care is the aim of this organization. It has employed various specialists and healthcare workers with this regard, including neuropsychologists, neurologists, nurses, rehabilitative specialists, therapists and speech, physical and occupational therapists, among other specialists. It has over the years been able to come up with superior methods of specifically evaluating TBI, treatments methods and relevant follow ups of the same. According to The Center of Excellence for Medical Multimedia (2015), the DVBIC was voted as the operational component for Traumatic Brain Injury at the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.

http://www.dcoe.mil/

BrainLineMilitary.org

This is basically an information resource center where the veterans and other service personnel can access information on traumatic brain injury. It was formed as part of BrainLine.org. It provides information in form of articles, webcasts, briefs, news, personal stories of those who have been affected and videos. It is military-specific, and thus, serves the Navy, the Airforce, the Marines, the Army, the Reserves and the National Guard. Here, these service personnel and veterans can gain knowledge on Traumatic Brain Injury, how to recognize it, the treatment options available, what to expect from treatment, care and recovery of patients, and other things that arise as a result of TBI. It offers a supportive community where access is available twenty four hours a day. Funding for this site comes from the Bob Woodruff Foundation and the Infinite Hero Foundation (Brainline Military, 2015). The website has no known political affiliations.

http://www.brainlinemilitary.org/

Phone ***

Address: 2775 S Quincy Street. Arlington, VA 22206

Dr. Charles Hoge contributions to TBI

Dr. Charles Hoge is a retired psychiatrist who worked for the Army and is now a senior scientific advisor for General Eric Schoomaker who is the Army Surgeon General. He has criticized the attribution of memory loss and problems with concentration to mild Traumatic Brain Injury. He sees this attribution or "illusory demands of TBI," costing the military very highly and unnecessarily as stated in an opinion statement he wrote for the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009. Dr. Hoge has dismissed mild TBI, seeing no harm in not identifying or diagnosing it. He expressed these sentiments in an email to a colleague in April 2010, which NPR and ProPublica gained access to. According to him, the symptoms can be treated without having to diagnose what caused them. Miller and Zwerdling (2010) state that experts have viewed the stance of Dr. Hoge as troubling. However, the doctor in an interview stated that his concern was that symptoms being attributed to TBI were actually caused by something else, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was according to a study that he published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which identified PTSD as the cause of many of these symptoms. However, in the same study, he stated that this was not to undermine TBI as it was still very important.