Traumatic brain injury can affect anyone, but when the causes and symptoms are unknown, treatment is unlikely.
A presentation to educate veterans, active duty service members and civilians on the basics of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, and offer resources to those who have TBI was held Tuesday at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
The event was part of Arizona State University and the Pat Tillman Veterans Center‘s Salute to Service week.
Chuck Hale, assistant director of the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus and regional recruiter for ASU, organized the event to inform veteran students of the resources available to them.
“I work with the veteran students, and I have worked with them for about 10 years now, and I know the struggles that they have,” Hale said. “They need the resources to help them with the issues that they have.”
Since 2000, the Department of Defense has recorded 307,287 traumatic brain injuries among military service members, said Clint Pearman, the regional education coordinator of Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
“Those are the people that showed up at medical and said, ‘Something is wrong, doc,’” Pearman said. “We believe a lot more have had traumatic brain injuries.”
Military members are trained in boot camp to deal with their injuries, which are seen as a part of their job, but Pearman said the case should be different when it comes to TBI.
“The suck-it-up concept and philosophy does not apply to traumatic brain injury. You can’t suck up a traumatic brain injury,” Pearman said.
Common causes of TBI in the military are blast exposure, falls, bullets or metal fragments, motor vehicle accidents and other blunt objects, according to Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
In 2010, 2.5 million Americans visited an emergency facility for a TBI, Pearman said.
“There is a huge population of people that have had traumatic brain injuries of the concussion version, the mild version, and they didn’t realize, ‘This could be serious’ and we don’t think ‘Maybe I need to go to the doctor and get something checked out.’ We simply struggle for the next two or three days with a head ache or maybe ringing in our ears and then it goes away and we think we are okay.” Pearman said, “So in the civilian population, along with the military, there is a large group of people that actually suffer mild concussions and they don’t realize it is a brain injury and something they should take care of.”
A TBI occurs when a person experience a jolting force or a blow to the head depending on the severity of the impact a TBI can be mild, moderate, severe or penetrating and will cause various physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms.
“Contrary to popular belief, traumatic brain injury is not a psychological issue. That’s what many people think,” Pearman said. “Your brain is damaged. Now it can lead to some psychological issues, but it is not a psychological issue — it is a physical issue, it is a damaged brain … What it does is it alters the way your brain functions.”
Pearman, a Marine Corps veteran of 32 years, and Hale, Marine Corps veteran of seven years, were the only attendees of the presentation on the downtown campus.
Tempe, Polytechnic, and Downtown Phoenix ASU campuses did not have any attendees possibly because the early morning to afternoon event conflicted with students’ schedules, Hale said.
One resource for veteran students is the Pat Tillman Center at ASU. It assists veterans with filing paperwork with the Department of Veteran Affairs and offers counseling, engagement opportunities, career services and other programs to help veterans transitioning out of the military and into college, said Christian Rauschenbach, program manager for veteran services at the Pat Tillman Center.
“We have a resource here which is vet success on campus and that is part of our program,” Rauschenbach said. “Really we’re the focal point for veteran engagement.”
Rauschenbach held a separate event on Wednesday in the downtown campus student center to educate ASU faculty and staff on TBI.
Contact the reporter at kajohn50@asu.edu
