The level of negligence in treating brain wounds continues unabated. The number of injured increases, along with budgets to diagnose, but not to treat and heal. Significant end-of-year investigative reporting reveals the continuing institutional negligence in facing the human and financial costs of brain wounds, whether from sports, war, or “unknown causes.”
Read MoreAccording to a 2022 report to US Congress with data provided by Dr. Steven Lieberman, VHA Under Secretary of Health, more than 796,340 Veterans have died from Diabetic Foot Ulcer (DFU) Lower Limb Amputations (LLA) since 2001. Approximately 93% of these Veterans were denied access to HBOT or not provided medically required ‘Informed Consent” about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. This is a National Tragedy which is preventable, but Veterans are largely and routinely denied access to FDA, CMS and Tricare-approved HBOT treatments, resulting in their premature DFU/LLA deaths.
Read MoreLately, polarized politics turns all problems into wicked problems. Thus, politics has become a series of half-truths dressed up as policy statements that become rallying cries and wish lists. Concerning Veterans, four half-truths that have become whole lies are instructive. The sad fact is also that the VA and DoD persist in continuing to repeat the lies that their research proves that HBOT is unproven, unsafe, ineffective, costly, risky, or worse.
Read MoreIf you want to help end suicides, you have to help heal Brain Wounds so that Service Members have a chance at a lifetime of health, not a moment of relaxation from pain and suffering. Now get out there and refer the brain wounded to us and lobby those VSOs and your state legislatures to join in the functional medicine approach to helping restore health and Quality of Life to the wounded and their families. Get the VSOs to fund and lobby hard at the state and federal levels to actually help heal brain wounds.
Read MoreIt’s happening again. We can all be thankful on Independence Day, but a special group of people suffer a dependency that locks them into a constraining future. Veterans suffering brain wounds, and anyone with an untreated brain injury/Concussion/TBI/PTSD knows the confines of polytrauma, sometimes years after the injury.
Read MoreThe US Veteran’s Administration, and too many hospitals, continue to mismanage the clinical evaluation and timely care of the estimated 2.2 million diabetic Veteran population at risk for Diabetic Foot Ulcer limb amputation. This failure on the part of the VHA has resulted in substantially higher Lifetime costs, morbidity, mortality and a tragic reduction in Veteran length and quality of life that is well below that of the Medicare civilian population statistical comparators as reflected in this report.
Read MoreOver 7,000 U.S. service members and over 8,000 contractors have died in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. There are hundreds of thousands of others wounded in visible and invisible ways, misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, all untreated by the VA/DoD for their brain wounds.
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The physical and mental effects on troops exposed to blast overpressure from weapons are getting attention from the Army and Congress. (Photo by U.S. Army, Staff Sgt. Arturo Guzman).
Addressing the Epidemic of Veteran Suicides: This episode highlights the risks of excessive prescription practices, and advocates for a transformative strategy to restore the well-being of our veteran community.
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