Purple Heart and Brain Injury

The Significance of the Purple Heart for Brain Injury

In April 2011, Army Secretary John McHugh made it official: Soldiers could get Purple Hearts for traumatic brain injuries. Hundreds of thousands of service members with “invisible wounds” were finally recognized as having suffered physical damage to their brains, in addition to the psychological consequences of their physically wounded brain. What did not follow was the answer to the obvious question: What are we doing to heal those damaged brains? Similarly, the NFL and sports teams in general do not treat the underlying physical damage to brain tissue caused by Concussions; they watch to make sure that the symptoms of the Concussion disappear before the player is returned to play. In each case, the governing organization invokes a Management Protocol, not a treatment and healing protocol.

Medicine struggles with treating physical injury to the brain. Nevertheless, Concussions and traumatic brain injuries resulting from improvised explosive devices, falls, impacts, car accidents, strokes, fights or sports injuries can be treated. Sadly, the standard protocol for Concussions and TBI is “watchful waiting.” Read what the Army and the NFL require. Note that in neither of these protocols are there mandates that the injury be treated with alternative therapies with decades of evidence indicating that they work to heal the underlying physical brain damage.

TreatNOW.org  Alternative Treatments to consider for  mTBI/Concussion Protocol

* Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

* Omega 3s and nutritional supplements known to enhance brain health

* Physical therapy, to include chiropractic

* Cranial electrical stimulation

* Near infrared therapy

* Magnetic resonance therapy

* Low laser light therapy

* any intervention with scientific validity that shows promise of treating and healing underlying physical brain injury