President's Statement on Military Injuries Following Iran's Missile Attack

(28 Jan 2010: Update on the injuries the President dismissed as 'headaches": 
Fifty US military personnel have now been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries following the Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq earlier this month, according to a statement Tuesday from the Pentagon.
That's an increase on 16 from late last week when the Pentagon said 34 cases had been diagnosed.)

In his press conference this morning from Davos, Switzerland, the President was asked about American troops hurt during Iran's missile attack. I feel he spoke (or hopefully only misspoke) of their injuries as something unworthy of his consideration.

I'm deeply disappointed in his response. I am a 100% service-connected totally disabled paralyzed war veteran, and so messed up the VA tossed me into something called "catastrophically disabled." But I would never dismiss TBI as "not very serious" compared to my injuries or those referred to by the President. 

I am not political, but I take a stand here: TBI is a lifelong threat to health. TBI is more serious than youthful bone spurs that somehow disappear without treatment.

The President said:

"I heard that they had headaches, and a couple of other things, but I would say, and I can report, it's not very serious, They told me about it numerous days later, you'd have to ask Department of Defense. I don't consider it very serious relative to other injuries that I've seen. I've seen what Iran has done with their roadside bombs to our troops. I've seen people with no legs and with no arms. I've seen people that were horribly, horribly injured in that area, that war. No, I do not consider that to be bad injuries, no."

Separately, and with somewhat more perspective on the medical issues facing the injured, a CENTCOM spokesman has informed reporters nineteen injured troops have been evacuated to Germany, from a current estimate of at least 34 blast injuries 

Read more about TBI from the National Institute of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Serious attention has been given since President Obama began an annual $100 million effort to address military TBI. The effort has continued with similar funding in the present administration. Since 2003 nearly 400,000 veterans have suffered moderate to severe TBI, typically blast injuries from ever-more lethal IEDs.

TBI, and indeed every military injury and illness, is worthy of our president's concern, respect and careful attention. Read here about DOD guidance for award of the Purple Heart for TBI injuries. That gets my respect.

Perhaps the administration should forward its new "not very serous" guidance to Building 3737 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC, ) the hospital's Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) & Rehabilitation Clinic. Blast injuries get serious respect there!

New VA Web Site for Families Dealing With PTSD

Good move, VA!

VA web site for families of veterans with PTSD

Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has set up a web site specifically for the families of veterans who have PTSD.

According to a report published on Monday by Military.com, the VA has set up the VA Caregiver Support web site because of concerns about caregiver burnout.

“Caregiver Burnout is the experience of feeling physically, psychologically, and medically unhealthy due to over compensation of family members when caring for service members with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other conditions.”

Living with a veteran who has PTSD isn’t easy. In fact it can be exceedingly difficult.

For the veteran, having nightmares or flashbacks about the worst moment in your life can ruin your day. Nightmares or flashbacks often leave the veterans feeling emotionally cut off from others, so they have a hard time relating to their spouse and family.

So the veteran pulls away from other people and becomes isolated.

Some veterans with PTSD find it hard to make friends, because of the feeling that “You make friends and friends die.” But their families can’t possibly understand that feeling, so the veteran and the family wind up living side by side in two entirely different worlds.

And sometimes, veterans with PTSD act in strange ways that can drive their family members up the wall.

There has been an overdose of publicity about how veterans with PTSD have inappropriate busts of anger, because of the way they respond to stress in survival mode, as if their life was being threatened.

While the “Rambo syndrome” may be good for Hollywood, there is no data to indicate that it is real. Veterans with PTSD don’t run around acting like Rambo.

But sometimes veterans with PTSD do strange things that their families just don’t understand.

You’re there to support your veteran. We’re here to support you.

Three symptoms of PTSD play a big part in this: Thinking that you are always in danger; feeling anxious, jittery, or irritated; and experiencing a sense of panic that something bad is about to happen.

That’s why so many veterans with PTSD can’t sit with their back to the door.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but think about it from the family’s point of view.

Every time you enter a restaurant, you have to look for a place where the veteran with PTSD can sit facing the door, and then make sure nobody sits in that seat before that veteran with PTSD can.

The same is true every time you enter a conference room, or even somebody else's living room. You never get the chance to relax.

Even after the veteran has learned anger management techniques that eliminate sudden bursts of anger, the families of a veteran with PTSD still have to be constantly on alert for the things that can trigger anxiety in the veteran.

New Service Connection Conditions for TBI Injuries Added by VA

Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Soto accompanies litter-bearers as they load an injured Marine into a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter during a medical evacuation on Jan. 30, 2012, in Garmsir, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. (Marine Corps)

By Patricia Kime
Staff writer

• FILED UNDER

• News

The Veterans Affairs Department has added five medical conditions to a list of illnesses that, if they are diagnosed in a patient with a service-connected brain injury, automatically are presumed to be service-connected as well.

The new regulation, which takes effect Jan. 15, adds Parkinson’s disease, certain types of dementia, depression, unprovoked seizures or some diseases of the hypothalamus and pituitary glands to the list of conditions that, when diagnosed secondary to a brain injury, also are presumed to be related to military service.

The change will make it easier for afflicted veterans to receive disability compensation from VA for the second condition.

“We decide veterans’ disability claims based on the best science available,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said Monday in a statement. “As scientific knowledge advances, VA will expand its programs to ensure veterans receive the care and benefits they’ve earned and deserve.”

Service connection will depend in part on the severity of the traumatic brain injury and onset of the illness, which will be considered secondary to the brain injury, according to VA.

Officials said the change was made based on a 2008 Institute of Medicine report that noted “sufficient evidence of an association” between the diseases and moderate to severe brain injury, and in the case of depression, mild concussions.

More than 250,000 service members suffered a TBI from 2000 to 2012, with 194,000 classified as mild — a concussion. About 42,000 suffered moderate TBI, defined as a “confused or disoriented state that lasts more than 24 hours, but less than seven days”; this level of TBI can be seen in brain images.

Another 6,476 received a severe TBI or a penetrating head wound.

Paul Sullivan, a 1991 Persian Gulf War veteran and spokesman for the law firm Bergmann & Moore, which handles disability claims, earlier this year described the then-proposed rule as “good news for veterans.

“What this does is make it easier for VA to process the claim with one less evidentiary step. And it establishes a framework for considering other conditions secondary to TBI,” Sullivan said.

VA Expands Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Benefits

VA to Expand Benefits for Traumatic Brain Injury   

Adds Five Illnesses Related to Service-Connected TBI

WASHINGTON – Some Veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who are diagnosed with any of five other ailments will have an easier path to receive additional disability pay under new regulations developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The new regulation, which takes effect Jan. 16, impacts some Veterans living with TBI who also have Parkinson’s disease, certain types of dementia, depression, unprovoked seizures or certain diseases of the hypothalamus and pituitary glands.

“We decide Veterans’ disability claims based on the best science available,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “As scientific knowledge advances, VA will expand its programs to ensure Veterans receive the care and benefits they’ve earned and deserve.”

This regulation stems from a report of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM) regarding the association between TBI and the five diagnosable illnesses. The IOM report, Gulf War and Health, Volume 7: Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Brain Injury, found “sufficient evidence” to link moderate or severe levels of TBI with the five ailments.

The new regulations, printed in the Federal Register, say that if certain Veterans with service-connected TBI also have one of the five illnesses, then the second illness will also be considered as service connected for the calculation of VA disability compensation.

Eligibility for expanded benefits will depend upon the severity of the TBI and the time between the injury causing the TBI and the onset of the second illness. However, Veterans can still file a claim to establish direct service-connection for these ailments even if they do not meet the time and severity standards in the new regulation.

Veterans who have questions or who wish to file new disability claims may use the eBenefits website, available atwww.eBenefits.va.gov/ebenefits.  

Servicemembers who are within 180 days of discharge may also file a pre-discharge claim for TBI online through the VA-DoD eBenefits portal at www.eBenefits.va.gov/ebenefits.

• The published final rule is available at http://www.regulations.gov.

• Information about VA and DoD programs for brain injury and related research is available at www.dvbic.org. 

• Information about VA's programs for Gulf War Veterans is available atwww.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/gulfwar/hazardous_exposures.asp.