The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought the issue of brain injury into sharper focus.
Once called "shell shock" or "having your bell rung," soldiers would often shake off blast injuries and head back to their units, only to have headaches, depression, other psychological and family problems emerge weeks, months and even years later.
In too many cases, soldiers take their own lives.
Tthe Madigan Army Medical Center is now the recipient of a $12 million fully equipped facility to deal directly with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). TBI is often associated with the blast forces from Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) triggered close to troops on foot or in vehicles. While many IED explosions lead to horrific physical as well as brain injuries, many times the injuries are not obvious because they are contained within the skull.
The facility is known as the Intrepid Spirit Center, and the one now officially opened at Joint Base Lewis-McChord is the sixth of nine such centers around the country. Another West Coast location at Camp Pendleton, California, also opened Thursday. The centers are built with private donations raised by the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, then the entire center is donated to the Department of Defense.
When a soldier comes in, they are treated by an integrated team of specialists and therapists who work on a comprehensive treatment plan.
"It really covers maybe seven or eight domains," said Col. Beverly Scott, M.D., a neurologist who runs the center and has also dealt with brain injuries in Afghanistan.
Col. Scott says those areas "include medical, psychological, intellectual, spiritual and social." Often soldiers are reached through their creative side; there is art as well as physical therapy.
One goal of the centers is to help restore soldiers to active duty. The Intrepid Center at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, opened in 2014 and claims a 94 percent success rate.
But Scott says that's just one measure, adding that some soldiers come in shortly before retiring from the military.
"It's never too late to help our service members, it's never too late for them to seek care and enter our program," said Scott.
