medical journalist describes slow journey to healing traumatic brain injuries -
Eleven years in the New England Journal of Medicine, medical journalist Susan Okie, MD, introduced the two readers veterans of the US military who have suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and the challenges they face in the recovery period after return. In the July 14 issue of the NEJM, Okie describes its follow-up interviews with the soldiers, and the slow journey to recovery that continues more than a decade later.
"A visit with [Jason] and Pepper [David] ... Emme. I observed many healing evidence, not only in the way they sound and what they are able to do, but in how they seem to have feelings and dreams, "Okie wrote in the NEJM article medicine and society," long-term Monitoring of TBI. - slow progress in science and recovery "
Okie details the personal journeys of each man through the years and when they did not have health care. It explores how each symptom encountered so often associated with TBI and PTSD: insomnia and nightmares, irritability, depression, guilt and anxiety
The recovery of each man is "slow "- Pepper only received comprehensive TBI evaluation VA. hospital this year - but both continue to make progress, Okie said, and she attributes the resilience of the two men to a common factor
"Although the surgical and medical treatment was crucial to Emme and pepper to departure , close personal relationships have suffered. them during the last decade, "she wrote.
Okie observed that Emme survived a critical distance probably because a longtime friend reached out for him just in time. and she said to Pepper, it seems that marriage and devotion to the family "helped to survive periods of sorrow for what he had lost."
"in men, courage, proud to have served in the military, and loyalty to their comrades were other sources of strength, "she said.
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