[Intentional Off Topic Post] Honor Our Military

Note from Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal:
http://ilena-rosenthal.blogspot.com
http://ilenarose.blogspot.com
http://www.BreastImplantAwareness.org

Our troops should never have been used to get Halliburton / Blackwater
/ Oil Industries etc. richer at the cost of millions of families.

To really 'honor our military' ... let's look into this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us...pagewanted=all

EXCERPT:
As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly
worked outside the wire, away from bases, have suffered at least one
concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates.

But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can
include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood
swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity.

These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or
months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble
lives and livelihoods.




The New York Times
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August 26, 2008
War Veterans’ Concussions Are Often Overlooked
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Former Staff Sgt. Kevin Owsley is not quite sure what rattled his
brain in 2004: the roadside bomb that exploded about a yard from his
Humvee or the rocket-propelled grenade that flung him across a road as
he walked to a Porta Potti on base six weeks later.

After each attack, he did what so many soldiers do in Iraq. He
shrugged off his ailments — headaches, dizzy spells, persistent
ringing in his ears and numbness in his right arm — chalking them up
to fatigue or dehydration. Given that he never lost consciousness, he
figured the discomfort would work itself out and kept it to himself.

“You keep doing your job with your injuries,” said Mr. Owsley, 47, an
Indiana reservist who served as a gunner for a year outside Baghdad
beginning in March 2004. “You don’t think about it.”

But more than three years after coming home, Mr. Owsley’s days have
been irrevocably changed by the explosions. He struggles to unscramble
his memory and thoughts. He often gets lost on the road, even with
directions. He writes all his appointments down but still forgets a
few. He wears a hearing aid, cannot bear sunlight on his eyes, still
succumbs to nightmares and considers four hours of sleep a night a
gift.

Mr. Owsley is part of a growing tide of combat veterans who come home
from Iraq and Afghanistan with mild traumatic brain injuries, or
concussions, caused by powerful explosions. As many as 300,000, or 20
percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire,
away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion, according to
the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better
within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical
assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems
that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss,
headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light
sensitivity.

These symptoms, which may be subtle and may not surface for weeks or
months after their return, are often debilitating enough to hobble
lives and livelihoods.

To this day, some veterans — it is impossible to know how many —
remain unscreened, their symptoms undiagnosed. Mild brain injury was
widely overlooked by the military and the veterans health system until
recently.

Even now, with traumatic brain injury called the signature injury of
the Iraq war, some soldiers and their advocates say that complications
from mild concussions often are not recognized.

Mr. Owsley’s request for a Purple Heart, given to troops wounded or
killed in action, was denied by the military, a devastating blow.
Others say that their mild brain injury entitled them only to low
disability payments, or, if the diagnosis was inconclusive, to none at
all.

This has happened in large part because there is no quantifiable
diagnostic test for the injury, and the language used by the Veterans
Affairs Department to rate traumatic brain injury, or T.B.I., is
vague. The military, in particular, seldom rates each symptom from a
concussion separately, which it is required to do, said Kerry Baker,
associate national legislative director for Disabled American
Veterans.

“The criteria remains ambiguous,” Mr. Baker said. “The military way
underrates T.B.I. and its symptoms.”

Scant Medical Knowledge

Little is known medically by doctors or scientists about what happens
to a brain as a result of a powerful bomb blast, as opposed to car
crashes on a highway, blows to the head on a football field or a
bullet wound. These are the first wars in which soldiers, protected by
strong armor and rapid medical care, routinely survive explosions at
close range and then return to combat.

The bomb blasts, which throw off energy waves — atmospheric
overpressures and underpressures — that are absorbed by the body, add
a little-studied dimension to the trauma. Scientists are only now
beginning to study the extent of the damage.

That soldiers are sometimes exposed to multiple blasts during a
deployment, or can suffer from a vast combination of wounds, including
shrapnel, burns, blows to the head, blast waves, lost limbs or
internal injuries, can exacerbate brain trauma in ways unseen among
civilians. “It is the black box of injuries,” said Dr. Alisa D. Gean,
the chief of neuroradiology at San Francisco General Hospital and a
traumatic brain injury expert who spent time treating soldiers at
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. “We’re at the tip of the
iceberg of understanding it. It is one of the most complicated
injuries to one of the most complicated parts of the body.”

These mild concussions, which do not necessarily lead to loss of
consciousness, are easy to dismiss, simple to misdiagnose and
difficult to detect. The injured soldiers can walk and talk. Their
heads usually show no obvious signs of trauma. CT scans cannot see the
injuries. And the symptoms often mirror those found in post-traumatic
stress disorder, making it hard to distinguish between them. In fact,
the two ailments often go hand in hand.

But the consequences of these seemingly small concussions can be
far-reaching, leading to financial problems, job losses, divorce and
mental health issues. The ramifications often go unseen by the
military because symptoms often worsen once veterans leave the
structure of the Army or Marine Corps for the unpredictability of
civilian life.

Take the case of Mr. Owsley, a father of three, whose brain injury so
impaired his reaction time and memory that doctors advised him not to
work.

“I almost lost everything,” said Mr. Owsley, whose wife brought home
the family paycheck for two years, working at a nursing home. “We were
at the point of getting ready to lose the house and the cars. Then you
start planning out things. I was planning to do suicide and make it
look like an accident so my family would get the insurance.”

At first, he said, doctors missed his traumatic brain injury. “She
told me nothing was wrong with me, but she gave me like 18 different
medications, for pain, to go to sleep, for lots of other things,” he
said of his first visit to a Veterans Affairs doctor at a facility in
Fort Wayne, Ind.

Later that year, another veterans hospital said he had mild traumatic
brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, hearing loss
and injuries to his hand, ankles, eye and back. He was rated 100
percent disabled by the Veterans Affairs Department and now receives a
monthly check for $2,711, easing the financial pressure somewhat.

Yet Mr. Owsley, referring to his Purple Heart denial letter, said he
felt his injuries had gone unrecognized by the military “because there
was no blood” and because he chose to work through his pain.

“They said it was because I didn’t report it in the field and seek
medical attention at the time, and there was no proof” of any obvious
injury, Mr. Owsley said. “I had guys write statements for me to prove
it had happened. As a soldier with 23 years in the Army, them badges
mean more than anything. When you get injured, you should be
recognized, even if you don’t see it over there.”

It was not until 2006, three years into the Iraq war, that the
Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs began to pay close
attention to mild traumatic brain injuries. The Pentagon last year
opened the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and
Traumatic Brain Injury, a clearinghouse for treatment, training,
prevention, research and education. This year it is spending a record
$300 million on research for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic
stress disorder.

“We are more attuned to brain injuries now,” said Lt. Col. Michael
Jaffee, the director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
“There has not been as aggressive an effort before.”

That effort begins with screening. As of May, service members who
deploy longer than 30 days will undergo neurocognitive testing before
leaving, to establish a baseline for changes that may occur later, and
again upon returning. At the same time, soldiers in battle who lose
consciousness or feel dazed after a blast or other event must be
screened by a medical provider and are either approved for duty in the
field, told to rest for several days on base or sent to Landstuhl for
further evaluation.

Last year, Veterans Affairs started screening all Iraq and Afghanistan
war veterans who come in for clinical help. So far, 33,000 of 227,015,
about 15 percent, have screened positive for mild brain injury since
April 2007.

It is unclear how many service members, particularly those who fought
earlier in the war, remain unscreened and whose injuries go
undiagnosed.

“No doubt that there are significant numbers out there,” said Dr.
Barbara Sigford, director of physical medicine and rehabilitation for
the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bryan Lane, 31, a former sergeant first class in Special Forces, did
not zero in on his head injury until more than a year after a bomb
exploded next to him in a house in Baghdad in 2005. The reasons were
understandable. He lost a huge chunk of his right arm in the explosion
and was fortunate not to have lost the limb altogether.

He did not realize that his brain had taken a hit until five months
later, when he saw the gaping hole in the front of his helmet. He
never lost consciousness after the blast, but the soldier next to him
was knocked out for two hours.

The possibility that he might have suffered a concussion was never
mentioned during his many months at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort
Bragg, N.C., where he had several operations to save his arm. Six
months after he was medically discharged, when he was putting in a
Veterans Affairs disability claim for his arm injury, a V.A. doctor
brought up a possibility overlooked at Womack: he might still be
suffering symptoms from a concussion.

It explained his shortened attention span, his frequent search for the
right word during conversation and his forgetfulness. “I hear things,
but it doesn’t throw it in the memory box,” he said.

“I was completely honest and said I don’t think I have T.B.I.,” said
Mr. Lane, who is still articulate, though less so today, he said. “A
lot of guys, myself included, fight the label of T.B.I. no matter how
mild. In a way, it’s like people are calling you stupid or retarded,
and I know that’s not P.C.”

The Veterans Affairs Department, which has become increasingly
vigilant about mild traumatic brain injury, thought otherwise and did
something unusual. It attached a brain injury claim alongside one for
post-traumatic stress disorder, covering all bases. “Since no one
understands the relation they have to each other, they said, ‘If you
have one, you have the other,’ ” said Mr. Lane, who receives benefits
for mental and physical injuries. He now works for the Armed Forces
Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides troops, many of them
injured, with financial support, among other things.

Delayed Symptoms Explained

Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are closely
tied, although the precise relationship between the two is unknown.

This connection was most recently established in a study in The New
England Journal of Medicine in January by Col. Charles W. Hoge, an
Army psychiatrist who is leading efforts to identify mental health
problems among combat troops. His survey of 2,500 Army infantry
soldiers found that more than 40 percent of those who reported loss of
consciousness also met the criteria for post-traumatic stress
disorder. That was a much higher percentage than those who had
suffered other injuries, like Humvee accidents or falls.

Dr. Hoge cautioned, though, that some symptoms — anger, headaches,
depression, sleeplessness, mood swings — may stem solely from combat
stress, a psychiatric disorder, and not traumatic brain injury.
Combat, he emphasized, often goes hand in hand with traumatic
experiences, including a near loss of life or the death or injury of
others.

For years most troops with mild concussions stayed on the job,
immersing themselves in combat again and re-exposing themselves to
additional blasts with little or no time to rest and recover. This
pattern only heightened the risk of brain injury and post-traumatic
stress disorder, doctors say.

Civilians with brain injury, on the other hand, are given time to
recuperate for long periods in a safe environment, which may explain
why they respond differently to stress.

Dr. Ibolja Cernak, a brain injury expert who is medical director of
the applied physics laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and is
conducting research into blast injuries, said she had noted other
differences between blast-injured soldiers and mildly brain-injured
civilians. Soldiers, she said, can develop symptoms two years after a
blast. Some also have greater difficulty walking or talking, or with
aggression.

“Civilians don’t have the frequency of these symptoms,” Dr. Cernak
said. There is no cure for those with prolonged concussion symptoms,
only methods to help them learn to adapt.

Sgt. Tony Wood, 41, now based at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, keeps a
large color-coded board by the door with reminders about his
appointments, his chores and his belongings, all part of the Brain
Injury Recovery Kit he received from a nonprofit group called the 10
in 10 Project. His wife calls him all day with reminders, and after
losing his keys countless times, he attaches them to his pants.
Notebooks fill his pockets.

In his view, the military is still failing to grasp the depths of his
injury, and those of other soldiers like him.

In July 2005, Sergeant Wood’s Humvee hit a roadside bomb cemented into
the curb. The blast set off a chain reaction, triggering two American
fragmentation grenades inside the Humvee along with an antitank weapon
and countless rounds of ammunition. The two other soldiers riding with
him died in the blast. The explosion tore through Sergeant Wood’s arm
and abdomen and then ricocheted inside his body, leaving only his
heart untouched. His liver had a fist-size hole, he lost his spleen
and part of his stomach, and he sustained damage to his lungs and
diaphragm.

Sergeant Wood’s first memory after the bomb was opening his eyes at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center about a month later, seeing his wife,
and asking, “Why are you in Iraq?”

Doctors patched up most of his physical wounds over five months. But
his wife, who was born with mild brain injuries, noticed that Sergeant
Wood, a military policeman, was not himself mentally. He did not
remember someone who had just walked out of the room. He forgot
questions he had just asked. He struggled to read one chapter of a
book.

Still a Soldier, and Struggling

While he was at Walter Reed in December 2005, Sergeant Wood said
doctors gave him a brain injury test. But it was inconclusive. “They
tried to say I had A.D.D., I needed a good night’s sleep, you name
it,” he said, referring to attention deficit disorder.

As he recovered in the Warrior Transition Unit at Tripler Army Medical
Center in Hawaii, Sergeant Wood tried to decide whether to stay in the
military by switching to less taxing jobs, an idea he hated, or to
leave, collect his benefits and find a civilian job. But his previous
jobs — professional cowboy, scuba instructor, construction worker —
were out of the question.

“My T.B.I. has impacted my ability to get a good job,” he said, adding
that he fears the best position he can get now is as “a greeter at
Wal-Mart.”

With four foster children, two biological children and a wife, he
steered the safe course and applied to try to stay in the military.
The Army Medical Board deemed him unfit for active duty and sent him
to the Physical Evaluation Board for a disability rating that would
determine his benefits package once discharged from the Army.

When he saw his rating in March, he was floored. Despite his extensive
wounds — brain injury, constant pain, failing hips, headaches, noise
sensitivity, no spleen, lung damage, liver damage, panic attacks and
chronic esophagitis — he received only a 50 percent rating. His brain
injury made up 10 percent of the total. A memorandum from the board
said that his “stated difficulties are more consistent” with
post-traumatic stress disorder.

As a last resort, Sergeant Wood can turn to the federal courts. (He
said he had not made that decision yet.)

He is not the first soldier to receive a low rating for his injuries
from the Army since the Iraq war began. The ratings so distressed
Congress that as of January, it ordered the military to follow solely
the ratings schedule issued by the Veterans Affairs Department, which
consistently grants veterans more money for the same injuries.

“The Army was raking these guys over the coals,” said Mr. Baker, of
Disabled American Veterans.

Asked by The New York Times to review Sergeant Wood’s paperwork, Mr.
Baker said his extensive injuries easily should have been rated 100
percent, according to the Veterans Affairs schedule. “This was
completely wrong,” Mr. Baker added.

Sergeant Wood has stayed in the Army under a program for soldiers
injured in combat. He sits at a Hawaiian jail and alerts the military
when a soldier gets locked up. He fears he will get an even lower
rating the next time he goes before the Army Medical Board, simply
because he is doing his job well.

“You are still treated like you are trying to beat the government out
of money,” Sergeant Wood said. “It’s not like I fell off a barstool.”