All Traumatic Brain injuries (concussions) are different and need to be treated as such.  In the military, a concussion received due to proximity to a blast can exhibit symptoms that are different from hitting your head on a hard surface.  The repetitive nature of firing a rifle in training can also cause damage that if left unchecked, can contribute to severe symptomology and repercussions in the future.

The concussive nature of an incendiary blast can contribute to symptoms related to the ear or vestibular system among others (click here to read a CDC document entitled “Explosions and Blast Injuries”).  Continued impacts can develop into more severe problems like CTE.  A truly collaborative approach to assessment, diagnosis and therapy is essential to the health and well being of the patient moving forward.

Military personnel are not only subjected to head trauma due to the nature of their job, but their daily regimen can also contribute to detrimental symptomology.   Lack of sleep, shiftwork, and stress can cause an imbalance of hormones in the brain which can have a cascading effect on the central and nervous systems.

This disruption to the central and nervous systems can result in vision, hearing, balance, speech, and cognitive decline which affects the overall capability of the individual to perform their assigned tasks.  Having a soldier underperforming is a detriment to the individual and to the unit as a whole.  Military personnel need to be assessed and treated on a regular basis.  It is one thing for a salesman to not perform his/her tasks to the best of their abilities, it is a completely different outcome for a soldier to have an inadequate ability to perform assigned tasks – it endangers the individual as well as the unit.

iCare is working with the Green Beret Foundation in an effort to conduct a pilot study which will demonstrate the efficacy of the iCare protocol.