Key Iraq wound: Brain trauma

A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts. It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq (news - web sites) war.

Known as traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the wound is of the sort that many soldiers in previous wars never lived long enough to suffer. The explosions often cause brain damage similar to "shaken-baby syndrome," says Warren Lux, a neurologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"You've got great body armor on, and you don't die," says Louis French, a neuropsychologist at Walter Reed. "But there's a whole other set of possible consequences. It's sort of like when they started putting airbags in cars and started seeing all these orthopedic injuries."
...
From January 2003 to this January, 437 cases of TBI were diagnosed among wounded soldiers at the Army hospital, Lux says. Slightly more than half had permanent brain damage.....

The wound may come to characterize this war, much the way illnesses from Agent Orange typified the Vietnam War, doctors say. "The numbers make it a serious problem," Lux says.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=5&u=/usatoday/20050304/ts_usatoday/keyiraqwoundbraintrauma

Clausewitz, the great strategist on war, says there is only one means to war: combat. And with combat come casualties. The wounded from Iraq have started to make their way back home. The first we see are those with head injuries; the scuttlebutt is that we are going to see a lot of these. Most of these injuries are from roadside bombs — "improvised explosive devices" — which differ from traditional antipersonnel devices in that they shoot shrapnel and dirt up rather than the more traditional out, making a Kevlar helmet merely a bucket that collects ordnance.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/1/3?hits=20&where=fulltext&andorexactfulltext=and&searchterm=Pamela+Grim&sortspec=Score%2Bdesc%2BPUBDATE_SORTDATE%2Bdesc&excludeflag=TWEEK_element&searchid=1109962648760_5356&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=nejm

Which Shrub supporters suffer from.

That's encouraging. I would've sworn they were "brain dead"

They can still tie their shoes, but they're not good for much else.

I swear...that guy must be THE most connected person on this planet!

:(

And a lot of that brain trauma will stay with them for life. And will the VA be able to take care of them? Not with Bu$h funding.

"Symptoms of TBI vary. They include headaches, sensitivity to light or noise, behavioral changes, impaired memory and a loss in problem-solving abilities."

I heard in a news cast months ago that these TBI's may be responsible for the most severe behavior changes, including the possibility of extreme aggression, personality changes, etc, that has led to couples separating, if not worse.

I've also heard that they have some neuro-feedback therapy that is helpful in some cases, at least with addressing some of the behavioral changes.

PHOTOS from
PURPLE HEARTS: BACK FROM IRAQ
(bush* disposable heroes)

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0412/purplehearts_intro.html









"My head doesn't let me work."

Sgt. John Quincy Adams, 37, A Reservist with the Florida National Guard, 124th Infantry, was on patrol in Ramadi August 29, 2003 when a remote controlled bomb exploded under his humvee sending shrapnel into his head and body leaving him brain damaged. Photographed at Home and with his wife Summer, in Miramar, Florida, December 18, 2003.








"I knew about the Middle East as much as I needed"

Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, 24, a Ranger, 3rd Battalion, 75th Regiment was injured April 3, during an artillery attack near the Hadithah Dam. Feldbusch, who was first in his class of 228 Rangers, is now brain damaged and blind. He sees nothing but darkness. Photographed in his home in Blairsville, Pennsylvania, October 18, 2003.






"I really have no idea what my mission was. We were trying to catch the people that were doing stuff.

PFC Randall Clunen, 19, 101st Airborne, stationed in Tal Afar, was pulling guard December 8, 2003 when a suicide bomber broke through security and exploded himself and his vehicle. Chunks of shrapnel ripped into Clunen's face. Photographed at home Salem, Ohio February 14, 2004.

Yahoo story is also very good. They have the link in the Yahoo story.

CANNON FODDER, to make bush* war-profiteers RICH....to DIE for bush* OIL theft....the great STUPID war....


how long until these families WAKE UP?

Please understand, I do not support this war, never have, I didn't support dropping bombs on Afghanistan.

But only when everyone within this country is involved in a personal will people start to care. It was in an article just within the last few months in Rolling Stone. Until we revive the draft there will be no "viable" anti-war movement. Let the RW Fundamentalist Christians' kids start being drafted with no "college" deferment and you will see all hell break loose upon the Bush administration and Rumsfeld and their "conduct" upon this "war on terror".

I want the draft to come back and I am going to be working with groups on how to educate the kids on being CO's and to just say no to an illegal and immoral War.

:kick:

so it's not just kids who need college money that have to fight. I do have a 17 year old boy, though. I have bookmarked all the articles I've found here about COs for my son when the time comes for him to register for the draft.

I can't count the number of people I've talked to who say they support Bush and the war, but don't want their own kids fighting it. I ask them every chance I get when their kids are going to "fight for our freedom". I've also told the men they should enlist, and when they say they're too old (they're about 45-50), I always say sincerely, "You're not too old. Every night when they show the most recent US deaths, there's plenty of dead people in their 40s and 50s".

I would encourage him to start creating a paper trail immediately.

any historical documentation (the more the better) that shows that you have felt this way for quite some time. If you wait until you get a letter telling you to report for duty to say you're a CO, they don't take it as evidence by itself. Unless you can show them that you are not just now saying you are a CO just to get out of being drafted, they will probably throw you in jail.

Since your son is 17 he'll have to register sometime in the next year, right? I'm certain you've seen in some of the articles information about starting documentation now of being pacifist/against war except in defense of, etc, writing essays, going to a "peace" church.

I have a 16 year old daughter on track to go to med school, I talk with my ex on a consistent basis warning him there will be a draft and to start now on saving her. Unfortunately, he is ex-Navy, pro-military and they are living in "Conservative Wasteland", DeLay country.

that are anti war, and gone to the anti war marches here. I better start paying more attention and get on this. Yikes.

from the marches. If you don't have pictures from the marches, get a few of your friends to write statements for you and get your son to write about his participation.

I have a grant pending to study how to improve the outcome of brain trauma. Too bad the NIH budget is supposed to be cut.