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thedrifter
09-29-08, 08:11 AM
VA changing ways of assessing traumatic brain, burn injuries

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, September 29, 2008

The Department of Veterans Affairs is changing the way it evaluates traumatic brain injuries and burn scars in determining the compensation veterans receive for these injuries.

Regulatory changes will allow VA decision makers to better assess the consequences of the injuries and ensure veterans are properly compensated for the injuries’ residual effects. The VA has revised the Disability Rating Schedule in light of current scientific and medical knowledge so that its employees have more detailed and current criteria for evaluating and compensating veterans.

The changes could affect veterans already receiving compensation for traumatic brain or burn injuries whose disabilities may be reevaluated under the new criteria.

The effects of blast injuries resulting from roadside explosions of improvised explosive devices have been common sources of injury in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and appear to be somewhat different from the effects of trauma seen from other sources of injury. Approximately 22,000 veterans are being compensated for brain injuries, of whom more than 5,800 served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Traumatic brain injuries result in immediate effects such as loss or alteration of consciousness, amnesia and neurological impairments. The abnormalities can have a wide range of impairment in such areas as physical, mental, and emotional/behavioral functioning.

More than 90 percent of combat-related traumatic brain injuries are closed head injuries, with most service members suffering mild injuries or concussion. Difficulties afterward may include headache, sleep interruption, decreased memory and attention, slower thinking, irritability and depression.

To view the entire regulation published in the Federal Register, go online to www.federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2008-22083_PI.pdf. For more information about VA disability compensation, go online to www.va.gov or call (800) 827-1000.


Joint Chiefs chairman says we owe veterans care

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen worries a great deal about the systems in place for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans transitioning out of the military and the loss of contact with them once they return to society.

Once service members separate from the military, they can register with the Veterans Affairs Department, which is responsible for helping them integrate back into society and can assist them with health care, entitled benefits and finding employment.

But what happens to those who do not register yet suffer physical injuries? What happens to those who received physical treatment but were too embarrassed to seek mental help?

Some may get on with their lives without any issues. Others may suffer from depression, alcoholism or drug addiction. Many may have difficulties holding a job, and some end up in jail. Posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries have become more and more common for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The single biggest issue Mullen has noticed during visits with wounded service members at polytrauma medical centers such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., is that they want their lives back, he said. They are eager to get back to their units or shift back into society and just move on with their lives, he added.

Unfortunately, many service members are so eager to separate from the military that they will forgo seeking needed psychiatric care. For these reasons there are significant issues with veterans struggling or becoming homeless due to undiagnosed, service-related disabilities, he said.

The problem with identifying mental disorders does not fall on the military checking up on people after separation, Mullen said. Rather, the screening process needs to be more extensive to catch posttraumatic stress or brain injury. Everyone returning from deployment should be screened before they get back to the United States, he said.

According to the annual consensus produced by VA homeless centers nationwide in 2007, an estimated 154,000 veterans in the United States are homeless. About 51 percent of those veterans served in the armed forces after the Vietnam War, and 45 percent indicated they had substance abuse and medical problems. At least 20 percent saw combat.

Mullen said the nation owes its veterans the care they need. “We as a country have to figure out a way to have a system that is integrated and [in which] we know where everyone is,” Mullen said. “We need to make sure those who’ve sacrificed so much are taken care of.”


VA to conduct seminar for female veterans

If you are a female veteran of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard or the National Guard/Reserves, you are invited to attend either one of two upcoming VA-sponsored women veterans’ seminars at the Warwick campus of the Community College of Rhode Island.

The first seminar will be held in Conference Room 1130 on Wednesday, from 6 to 8 p.m., and a second session will be held in the same location on Oct. 25, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission is free and information will be available on military service entitlements and programs available to assist female veterans. For more information, call Carla Murchelano at (401) 223-3651.

Navy crew reunites with man they saved as child

Sixty crew members of the Point Cruz (CVE 119) will join with Newport’s Naval War College and Naval War College Foundation tomorrow to pay tribute to the late Vice Adm. John Hayward at a luncheon at the Newport Officer’s Club.

A former Naval War College president, Hayward was the commanding officer of the Point Cruz in 1953 when the ship rescued an infant boy from an orphanage in Inchon, Korea. The baby, near death, was not Korean and stood no chance for life in Korea. At the urging of the ship’s chaplain, Hayward took the baby on board where he was nursed back to health. Hayward’s relentless effort to get the baby back to the United States was so inspiring that it was told in a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie called 1000 Men and a Baby.

That baby, named Dan Keenan, is now in his 50s and will attend the tribute luncheon to reunite with the men who saved his life.

For more information call David Stewart, reunion host, at (401) 253-0050, or send e-mail to dstewart@systinc.com.

Ellie