http://www.mdlinx.com/neurology/top-medical-news/article/2016/07/18/8
Georgetown University Medical Center News
Eleven
years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, medical journalist
Susan Okie, MD, first introduced readers to two U.S. Army veterans who
suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq, and the challenges they faced
in the recovery period after returning home. In the July 14 issue of
the NEJM, Okie describes her follow–up interviews with the soldiers, and
the slow journey to recovery that continues more than a decade later.
“Visiting with [Jason] Pepper and [David] Emme....I’ve observed ample
evidence of healing, not just in how they sound and what they’re able to
do, but in how they seem to experience feelings and dreams,” Okie
writes in the NEJM Medicine and Society article, “TBI’s Long–Term
Follow–up – Slow Progress in Science and Recovery.” Okie details the
personal journeys of each man through years when they did and didn’t
have medical care. She explores how each encountered symptoms so often
associated with TBI and PTSD: sleeplessness and nightmares,
irritability, depression, guilt and anxiety. Each man’s recovery is
“slow” – Pepper only received a comprehensive TBI evaluation at a VA
hospital this year – but both continue to make progress, Okie says, and
she attributes both men’s resilience to a common factor. “Although
surgical and medical treatment were crucial to Emme and Pepper
initially, close personal relationships have sustained them over the
past decade,” she writes. Okie observed that Emme survived a critical
setback likely because a long–standing friend reached out to him just in
time. And she says for Pepper, it appears that his marriage and
devotion to family “helped him survive periods of grief for what he’d
lost.”
No comments:
Post a Comment