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OVERSIGHT HEARING ON TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI): PROGRESS IN TREATING THE SIGNATURE WOUNDS OF THE CURRENT CONFLICTS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 5, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BERNARD SANDERS, (I) Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, Ranking 

Member 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM E. BREW, Staff Director 

LUPE WISSEL, Republican Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

MAY 5, 2010 

SENATORS 

Page 

Akaka, Hon. Daniel K., Chairman, U.S. Senator from Hawaii ........................... 1 

Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from North Carolina ....... 2 

Tester, Hon. Jon, U.S. Senator from Montana ...................................................... 4 

Murray, Hon. Patty, U.S. Senator from Washington ........................................... 28 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from Georgia ............................................... 31 

Begich, Hon. Mark, U.S. Senator from Alaska ..................................................... 35 

Brown, Hon. Scott, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts ......................................... 144 

WITNESSES 

Beck, Lucille B., Ph.D. Chief Consultant, Office of Rehabilitation Services, 

Office of Patient Care Services, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; accompanied by Karen Guice, M.D., Director, 

Federal Recovery Coordination Program; Joel Scholten, M.D., Associate 

Chief of Staff for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Washington, DC, 

VA medical center; and Sonja Batten, Ph.D., Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury ............................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Response to written questions submitted by: 

Hon. Daniel K. Akaka .................................................................................. 13 

Hon. Sherrod Brown ..................................................................................... 16 

Response to request arising during the hearing by: 

Hon. Patty Murray ........................................................................................ 29 

Hon. Jon Tester ......................................................................................... 34,41,42 

Hon. Mark Begich ......................................................................................... 36 

Jaffee, Col. Michael S., M.D., National Director, Defense and Veterans Brain 

Injury Center (DVBIC), Traumatic Brain Injury Program, U.S. Department 

of Defense; accompanied by Katherine Helmick, Interim Senior Executive 

Director for TBI, Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health 

and Traumatic Brain Injury ................................................................................ 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Akaka ... 22 

Bohlinger, Karen L., Second Lady, State of Montana .......................................... 43 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 46 

Barrs, Jonathan W., Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran ....................................... 47 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49 

Gans, Bruce M., M.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, 

Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation .................................................................... 50 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Akaka ... 57 

Dabbs, Michael F., President, Brain Injury Association of Michigan ................. 59 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

Attachment 1—CARF Statistics Table for Michigan ............................. 65 

Attachment 2—State of Michigan map identifying CARF accredited 

providers ................................................................................................. 66 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Akaka ... 67 

Enclosure—TBI-ROC Brain Injury Navigator ........................................ 70 

Page

IV 

LaPlaca, Michelle C., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and 

Emory University, Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience, Laboratory 

of Neuroengineering, Atlanta, GA ...................................................................... 73 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 75 

Response to post-hearing questions submitted by Hon. Daniel K. Akaka ... 78 

Attachments ............................................................................................... 80 

APPENDIX 

Wade, Sarah, Wounded Warrior Project; prepared statement ............................. 151 

National Association of State Head Injury Administrators; prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 156 

Poe, Charles M. ‘‘Mason’’, SSGT USMC (Ret.); prepared statement ................... 159 

Poe, Kristin M.; letter .............................................................................................. 161 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON TRAUMATIC BRAIN 

INJURY (TBI): PROGRESS IN TREATING THE 

SIGNATURE WOUNDS OF THE CURRENT 

CONFLICTS 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in room 

418, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka, Murray, Tester, Brown of Massachusetts, Begich, Burr, and Isakson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA, CHAIRMAN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

Chairman AKAKA. This hearing will come to order. Aloha and 

welcome to all of you here today. 

Today we will be discussing the progress that has been made in 

providing care and services to veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury. Differences in tactics, such as the use of IEDs, and significant 

advances in battlefield medicine and protective equipment from 

prior wars have resulted in an unprecedented number of servicemembers sustaining and surviving TBIs, making this the signature 

physical wound of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is estimated that up to 360,000 servicemembers have sustained a brain 

injury in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Government must do all it can 

to treat these wounded veterans. 

In 2007, in response to this trend, I convened a hearing of this 

Committee on diagnosing and treating TBI. That hearing led to the 

introduction and ultimate passage of legislation I authored to enhance TBI services in VA. Today we revisit this topic to determine 

how completely that law is being implemented and how effective 

the steps we have taken have been in making sure veterans with 

TBI are receiving necessary and appropriate care. 

Today, we will explore the relationship between VA and outside 

entities in providing treatment and rehabilitation services for TBI. 

I have visited the Richmond, Virginia, polytrauma center, and was 

very impressed with what I saw, but I believe that there is a need 

to expand the geographic availability of care. It is a burden for 

family members to have to travel several hours to visit their loved 

ones in the hospital or to take them to rehabilitation appointments. 

2 

In addition to partnering with community and other non-VA providers, VA must do more to involve family members in providing 

care for their wounded veterans. We must recognize and support 

family members appropriately, as they are our partners in this 

shared mission. 

The Legislation I authored to provide a comprehensive program 

of services and support to family members who wish to care for 

their veterans at home, instead of placing them in an institution, 

is to be signed by President Obama this afternoon. This caregiver 

program will be another tool we can use to provide a seamless and 

effective continuum of care for veterans with TBI. 

I am pleased to have witnesses from both VA and the Department of Defense here today. Effectively addressing the issue of TBI 

requires the full efforts of both Departments; neither can do it 

alone. I encourage both Departments to continue to break down 

barriers in their processes and find new ways to work more 

seamlessly, which ultimately results in the best outcomes for servicemembers and veterans. 

One of the most critical challenges remaining is properly diagnosing mild and moderate TBI. Reliance on self-reporting, the 

misdiagnosing of symptoms, and sometimes the lack of an easily 

identifiable traumatic event are all elements that make it more difficult to get the proper care to these veterans and servicemembers. 

An aggressive and proactive approach to screening using the latest 

innovations is necessary. 

I thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look forward 

to your testimony. Veterans suffering with TBI have demonstrated 

courage on the battlefield, and they continue to do so in their recovery. Together we can improve the care and services available to 

them. 

Thank you very much, and now I ask our Ranking Member, Senator Burr, for his statement. Senator Burr. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BURR, RANKING MEMBER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH CAROLINA 

Senator BURR. Aloha, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Aloha. 

Senator BURR. Thank you for calling this hearing. I want to take 

a moment, if I can, to recognize several North Carolinians who are 

in attendance at the hearing today. They each have important stories, and one will share that story with us. 

First, we have on our second panel Jonathan Barrs. Jonathan retired from the Marine Corps last year after two tours in Iraq. He 

experienced two improvised explosive device blasts in 1 week while 

serving as a turret gunner in his Humvee and was later diagnosed 

with a TBI in 2008. Jonathan, thanks for agreeing to share your 

story with these Members and this panel today and, more importantly, for your service to the country. 

Also joining us is Mason Poe and his wife, Kristen. Mason was 

in a coma for 1 month following an IED blast in Iraq. Thirty surgeries later, he is walking and has started his own small business. 

Both Mason and his wife have submitted testimony for the record 

today. 

3 

[The prepared statements of both Mr. and Mrs. Poe are in the 

Appendix.] 

Senator BURR. Next, Vincent Gizzerelli served two tours in Iraq 

before his separation from service last year. He took shrapnel in 

his leg and has moderate to severe TBI following an IED blast in 

2004. Vincent, thank you for being here. 

Last, I want to acknowledge two individuals that are not here, 

Mr. Chairman, and I had hoped they would have been—Sarah and 

Ted Wade—for their work within the Wounded Warrior Project. 

Ted sustained a severe brain injury while in Iraq, and Sarah has 

been at his side ever since. Later today, the President will sign into 

law a bill that will direct the creation of a program of assistance 

for family caregivers. Without the bravery and support of loved 

ones like Sarah, many of our wounded warriors would be forced to 

live in nursing home settings. Sarah and Ted have submitted testimony for the record today, and they have already been an invaluable asset in helping Congress, the VA, and the Department of Defense on new ways to improve and coordinate care and its delivery 

to our servicemembers and veterans with TBI. Their efforts were 

critical in shaping the family caregiver legislation that the President will sign. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Sarah Wade is in the 

Appendix.] 

Senator BURR. To all of you, I thank you for your service to our 

country. I thank you for your willingness to continue that service 

by working with us to improve the system of care and the benefits 

for all our servicemembers. 

Mr. Chairman, just over 3 years ago, the Committee held a hearing on VA’s ability to respond to the health care needs of returning 

servicemembers, the care provided to what is known as the signature wound of the current war. TBI was the main focus. What we 

learned from that hearing led to provisions enacted within the 2008 

Defense Authorization Act. Specifically, the law directed or authorized actions on the following points: one, providing to each of our 

TBI wounded an individual plan of rehabilitation and reintegration 

into the community; two, using rehabilitation services outside of 

VA where appropriate, particularly for newly injured veterans; 

three, research on the diagnosis and treatment of TBI; four, providing assisted living services in veteran communities; and, finally, 

the provision of age-appropriate nursing care to younger veterans 

with severe TBI whose needs are vastly different than a typical 

nursing home patient. 

I hope to learn from both VA and DOD the progress they have 

made in each of these areas. 

Furthermore, I am interested to learn whether one of the key 

recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission, the creation of 

Federal recovery coordinators, is helping servicemembers and their 

families navigate systems of care and benefits that in many cases 

are overwhelming. From those who work or do research on TBI 

issues on a day-to-day basis, I hope to learn how we might continue 

to improve our past efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, our Nation faces extraordinary domestic challenges, but we must never forget the sacrifices our men and women 

and their families make in the defense of our freedom. Meeting 

4 

their needs is our highest priority as a Nation. I remain committed 

to work with you and with this entire Committee to fulfill our obligation to them. I am confident we can do better than we have. 

I thank the Chair. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Burr. 

Senator Tester? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 

for holding this hearing today. I also want to welcome the witnesses, especially Karen Bohlinger, of Helena, MT. Karen is the 

wife of Montana’s lieutenant Governor, but first and foremost, she 

is the mother of an American soldier. Her son, Jeremy, has been 

in a VA polytrauma network site for nearly 5 years. During that 

time, she has been one of the most vocal, passionate advocates for 

veterans and their families that I have ever met. She is going to 

talk about Jeremy’s story in great detail, so I am not going to steal 

her thunder, except to say that she has a powerful story to tell 

about what the VA is doing right and what the VA is doing wrong. 

So, Karen, I want to thank you so very, very much for being here 

today. You have a critically important story to tell, and we all look 

forward to hearing it. 

Much is made of how Traumatic Brain Injury is the signature 

wound of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. By now, many of us 

know the statistics and the challenges facing the doctors and 

nurses in the DOD facilities and VA hospitals who have been 

tasked with treating hundreds of thousands of men and women. 

These are gut-wrenching, life-changing challenges, and it is critical 

that the spouses and the parents are a meaningful voice in patient 

care and treatment. 

But all too often, I hear about folks who have a loved one that 

come into the DOD health system or the VA with serious TBI. The 

parents and the spouses of these servicemembers then have to 

wage a battle against the bureaucracy when someone that they 

care about is not getting the treatment that they deserve. 

I met with a number of folks from Montana who have come 

through Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval. Most of them have been 

fortunate to have a spouse or a parent who has been able to drop 

everything and fight full time for their soldier or Marine. One of 

the things that I have heard frequently was that the individual 

care from doctors and nurses was outstanding, but fighting with 

the bureaucracy to schedule an appointment with a doctor or to 

have medications changed is nothing short of a full-time job. 

What happens to a soldier or a veteran when he does not have 

a full-time advocate? What happens when a young person from 

rural Montana is brought to Seattle or Minneapolis with serious 

TBI? Who is looking out for that young woman or man? This is the 

area where we need to do better. 

Mr. Chairman, I know we have got a busy agenda, but I want 

to say one more thing. Recently, I joined Senator Murray on a letter to the Secretary of the Army asking some questions about the 

Army’s Warrior Transition Units. I have been told that most of 

these questions are beyond the scope of this Committee’s jurisdicVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
5 

tion. I do believe that we should consider another round of joint 

hearings with our friends from the Armed Services Committee to 

find out about what we can do to make sure the WTUs work better 

for the soldier who will eventually become a veteran and, thus, will 

be in our jurisdiction. 

With that, thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing. I 

look forward to the testimony from our participants. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Senator Brown, your statement, please. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is a pleasure to be here again. Being from Massachusetts, we 

have, Mr. Chairman, a statewide head injury program that we 

have implemented, for which we receive State funds. Obviously, it 

is funded by the State, and there are some Federal grants tied into 

it. It is an issue that we have identified and tried to work with the 

appropriate treatment authorities. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I am in the Guard as a JAG. I notice regularly the transformation from a soldier who is raring to go 

to somebody who is not functioning quite right. Before, we never 

really knew why, and I think we have identified it through the research and treatment opportunities in Massachusetts and throughout the country. It is something that I want to thank you for holding another hearing about. Being new, it is something that we have 

taken very seriously back home because we are trying to find out 

how to help, you know, what types of tools and resources do we 

need to provide our men and women who are serving to get better 

and get back to their families and be the person they once were. 

So I am going to defer. I look forward to the testimony though 

I will be bouncing back and forth to the Armed Services Committee. And, Senator Tester, I am happy to work with you on that 

letter and move that through the food chain. So thank you. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Brown. 

Now I want to welcome our witnesses. Would you please come up 

to the dais? First we have Dr. Lucille Beck, who is Chief Consultant for Rehabilitation Services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. She is accompanied by Dr. Karen Guice, the Director of the 

Federal Recovery Coordination Program; Dr. Joel Scholten, Associate Chief of Staff for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the 

Washington, DC, VA medical center; and Dr. Sonja Batten, Deputy 

Director of the Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. 

We also have Col. (Dr.) Michael Jaffee, National Director of the 

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. Katherine Helmick, Interim Senior Executive Director for TBI at the Defense Centers of 

Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, is 

sitting there. 

I thank you all for being here this morning. Your testimony will 

appear in the record. Dr. Beck, will you please proceed with your 

statement? 

6 

STATEMENT OF LUCILLE B. BECK, PH.D. CHIEF CONSULTANT, 

OFFICE OF REHABILITATION SERVICES, OFFICE OF PATIENT CARE SERVICES, VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; ACCOMPANIED BY KAREN GUICE, M.D., DIRECTOR, FEDERAL RECOVERY COORDINATION PROGRAM; JOEL SCHOLTEN, M.D., 

ASSOCIATE CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PHYSICAL MEDICINE AND 

REHABILITATION, WASHINGTON, D.C., VA MEDICAL CENTER; 

AND SONJA BATTEN, PH.D., DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH AND TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY 

Ms. BECK. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for 

inviting me here to update the Committee on VA’s progress in implementing the wounded warrior provisions in the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvement Act of 2007. 

I would like to thank the Committee for its work, which has enabled VA to establish landmark programs and initiatives to meet 

the provisions of the Wounded Warrior Act. 

I would also like to thank the members of the second panel for 

their advocacy on behalf of severely injured veterans. We appreciate these opportunities where we can listen to our stakeholders 

because they know the system and they can help us improve. 

Polytrauma is a new phenomenon, and, unfortunately, medicine 

has not yet caught up in every regard. At the outset of the current 

conflicts, it is fair to say we were unprepared for the complexity of 

injuries we were seeing because servicemembers would not have 

survived these types of injuries in previous conflicts. While VA had 

established TBI centers, Traumatic Brain Injury centers, in 1992, 

it was in 2005 that we established the Polytrauma System of Care 

and the four Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers. We know there 

were challenges during those early days in providing seamless care 

that could treat all of the veterans’ needs. Care for complex injuries 

was limited to the four polytrauma centers. Some veterans with severe TBI were not regaining consciousness, and care was not optimally coordinated. 

Today the Polytrauma System of Care has direct patient care 

available at 108 locations across the country. There are 48 polytrauma points of contact at other facilities who can refer veterans 

and family members to the specialists they need. Twenty Federal 

Recovery Coordinators support the transition and care of the severely injured. We worked with 1,573 facilities and providers in the 

private sector to provide care for more than 3,700 veterans at a 

cost of more than $21 million in fiscal year 2009. We have an 

Emerging Consciousness treatment approach that we developed 

after consulting with the best clinicians across the country that 

sees better than 70 percent of patients recover. 

VA provided more than $23 million in fiscal year 2010 to support 

106 research projects related to TBI, and we are screening every 

OEF/OIF veteran who comes to us for care for Traumatic Brain Injury. We have the systems in place and the resources we need to 

care for our veterans. In addition, we have made our programs veteran centric. We have modified the physical environment at our 

Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers to be family friendly, and we 

7 

have added liaisons at the major military treatment facility to improve patient transfers. We use teams of clinicians to achieve our 

goal of returning veterans to the maximum level of independence 

and functionality. 

Let me provide you with an example of how this benefits veterans. A 28-year-old servicemember was injured in a blast in 2007. 

He sustained moderate TBI, eye injuries, burns, and fractures in 

his hands. Within 12 hours, he was flown to Landstuhl for surgery 

and stabilization, and within 72 hours, he was sent to Walter Reed. 

Ten days after the injury, the Richmond Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center was on a videoconference receiving a medical update 

and information about the family. Eleven days after that, the family toured the Richmond PRC with a case manager from Walter 

Reed. Less than a week later, 4 weeks from his injuries, the servicemember was admitted to the Richmond Rehabilitation Center 

and was recovering from his burns and fractures. 

By the 120th day following his injuries, we were transferring him 

to the Polytrauma Transitional Rehabilitation Program, and he 

was also receiving services from blind rehabilitation and community rehabilitation. On the 210th day after his injuries, he returned 

home. VA continues providing outpatient care through the polytrauma network site as well as vocational rehabilitation and family 

counseling. Today he is living at home with his spouse, exploring 

work and volunteer opportunities, and continuing close case management with VA. This is one of many stories that we are proud 

of, and this Committee should also take pride in helping to make 

it possible. 

Although we have accomplished much since we established these 

programs, we recognize that there are still challenges to overcome. 

For example, we need to improve the availability of services in 

rural areas. One way we are pursuing this goal is through the use 

of telemedicine. Four of our facilities, including Denver, now offer 

TBI screening and evaluation to veterans in rural areas. In addition, we are always looking to establish new relationships with 

high-quality local care providers and strengthen the more than 300 

local agreements that are already in place. 

In closing, let me thank you again for your support and the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to our continued partnership on this issue. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Beck follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LUCILLE B. BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES AND THE DIRECTOR OF THE AUDIOLOGY AND SPEECH PATHOLOGY

PROGRAM, VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS

AFFAIRS

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me here to update the Committee on the Department 

of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) progress in implementing the wounded warrior provisions 

in the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvement Act of 

2007. I would like to thank the Committee for its work in passing important legislation, which has enabled VA to establish landmark programs and initiatives to meet 

the provisions of the title XVI, referred to as the Wounded Warrior Act, and title 

XVII of Public Law 110–181. 

I am accompanied today by Dr. Karen Guice, Director of the Federal Recovery Coordination Program; Dr. Joel Scholten, Associate Chief of Staff for Physical Medicine 

and Rehabilitation at the Washington, DC, VA Medical Center; and Dr. Sonja Batten, Deputy Director at the Department of Defense (DOD) Centers of Excellence for 

8 

Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. I will describe the current state 

of VA care and services for Veterans and Servicemembers with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), as well as discuss the interagency collaborations with DOD to improve 

the care, management and transition of recovering Servicemembers. 

BACKGROUND

VA has developed and implemented numerous programs that meet legislative requirements and ensure the provision of world-class rehabilitation services for Veterans and active duty Servicemembers with TBI. VA has enhanced its integrated 

nationwide Polytrauma/TBI System of Care. The VA Polytrauma/TBI System of 

Care consists of four levels of facilities, including 4 Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers, 22 Polytrauma Network Sites, 82 Polytrauma Support Clinic Teams, and 48 

Polytrauma Points of Contact. The System offers comprehensive clinical rehabilitative services including: treatment by interdisciplinary teams of rehabilitation specialists; specialty care management; patient and family education and training; psychosocial support; and advanced rehabilitation and prosthetic technologies. 

In 1992, VA designated four lead TBI Centers as part of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) collaboration to provide comprehensive rehabilitation for Veterans and active duty Servicemembers. In 1997, VA designated a TBI 

Network of Care to support care coordination and access to services across VA’s system. In recognition of the high survival rate of severely injured Servicemembers in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress passed two laws that underscored the need for a 

specialized system of care that meets the complex rehabilitation needs of Servicemembers and Veterans injured in combat: Public Law 108–422, the Veterans Health 

Programs Improvement Act of 2004, and Public Law 108–447, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005 (in accompanying Reports S. Rep. 108–353 and H.R. Rep. 

108–792 (Conf. Rep.)). These laws directed VA to ensure that severely injured Veterans would benefit from the best of both modern medicine and integrative therapies for rehabilitation. In addition, these laws furthered the development of specialized, interdisciplinary rehabilitation programs to handle the complex medical, psychological, and rehabilitative needs of these individuals. In 2005, VA expanded the 

scope of services at existing VA TBI Centers, and accordingly renamed them Polytrauma/TBI Rehabilitation Centers, to establish an integrated, tiered system of specialized, interdisciplinary care for polytrauma injuries and TBI. 

‘‘Polytrauma’’ is a new word in the medical lexicon that was termed by VA to describe the complex, multiple injuries to multiple body parts and organs occurring as 

a result of blast-related injuries seen from Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) or 

Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Polytrauma is defined as two or more injuries to 

physical regions or organ systems, one of which may be life threatening, resulting 

in physical, cognitive, psychological, or psychosocial impairments and functional disability. TBI frequently occurs in polytrauma in combination with other disabling 

conditions such as amputation, auditory and visual impairments, spinal cord injury 

(SCI), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and other medical problems. Due to 

the severity and complexity of their injuries, Servicemembers and Veterans with 

polytrauma require an extraordinary level of coordination and integration of clinical 

and other support services. 

The VA Polytrauma System of Care currently provides specialty rehabilitation 

care across 108 VAMCs to create points of access along a continuum, and integrating services available at 4 regional Polytrauma/TBI Rehabilitation Centers 

(PRC), 22 Polytrauma Network Sites—one in each Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) and one in San Juan, Puerto Rico—and 82 Polytrauma Support Clinic 

Teams. 

PRCs provide the most intensive specialized care and comprehensive rehabilitation care for Veterans and Servicemembers with complex and severe polytrauma. 

PRCs maintain a full staff of dedicated rehabilitation professionals and consultants 

from other specialties to support these patients. Each PRC is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, and each serves as a resource 

to develop educational programs and best practice models for other facilities across 

the system. The four regional Centers are located in Richmond, VA; Tampa, FL; 

Minneapolis, MN; and Palo Alto, CA. A fifth Center is currently under construction 

in San Antonio, TX, and is expected to open in 2011. 

VA’s Polytrauma System of Care strongly advocates family involvement throughout the rehabilitation process, and VA strives to ensure that patients and their families receive all necessary support services to enhance the rehabilitation process 

while minimizing the inherent stress associated with recovery from TBI and polytrauma. VA offers multiple levels of clinical, psychosocial and logistical support to 

ensure a smooth transition and continuous care for patients and their families. VA 

9 

assigns a dedicated case manager to each patient and family at a PRC. These case 

managers maintain workload levels of six patients each. Families can access this 

case manager for assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Since 2007, VA has placed Polytrauma Nurse Liaisons at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center (at Bethesda, MD) to support coordination of care, patient transfers, and shared patients between DOD and VA PRCs. 

Whenever an injured Veteran or Servicemember requires specialized rehabilitative 

services and enters VA health care, the Polytrauma Nurse Liaison maintains close 

communication with the admissions nurse case manager at the VA PRC, providing 

current and updated medical records. Before transfer, the Center’s interdisciplinary 

team meets with the DOD treatment team and family by teleconference as another 

way to ensure a smooth transition. 

The four VA Centers typically have between 12- and 18-inpatient beds staffed by 

specialty rehabilitation teams that provide acute interdisciplinary evaluation, medical management and rehabilitation services. Occupancy rates at these Centers fluctuate over time and location. The average length of stay is currently 30 days, but 

the average for the most severely injured is 67 days. Upon discharge from a VA 

PRC, patients may be transferred to another facility, although over 70 percent are 

discharged to their home. 

VA ACCOMPLISHMENTS

A total of 1,736 inpatients with severe injuries have been treated at these Centers 

from March 2003 through December 2009; 879 of these patients have been active 

duty Servicemembers, of which 736 were injured in OEF or OIF. VA continues following these patients after their discharge from a VA PRC to assess their long-term 

outcomes. Data available for 876 former patients indicate: 

• 781 (89 percent) are living in a private residence; • 642 (73 percent) live alone or independently; • 413 (47 percent) report they are retired due to age, disability or other reasons; • 206 (24 percent) are employed; • 90 (10 percent) are in school part-time or full-time; and • 59 (7 percent) are looking for a job or performing volunteer work. 

As patients recover and transition closer to their homes, the Polytrauma/TBI System of Care provides a continuum of integrated care through 22 Polytrauma Network Sites, 82 Polytrauma Support Clinic Teams, and 48 Polytrauma Points of Contact, located at VAMCs across the country. 

The Polytrauma Network Sites develop and support a patient’s rehabilitation plan 

through comprehensive, interdisciplinary, specialized teams; provide both inpatient 

and outpatient care; and coordinate services for Veterans with TBI and polytrauma 

throughout the VISN. 

In 2008, the Polytrauma Support Clinic Teams expanded to 82 VA facilities. 

These interdisciplinary Teams of rehabilitation specialists provide dedicated outpatient services closer to home and manage the long-term or changing rehabilitation 

needs of Veterans. These Teams coordinate clinical and support services for patients 

and their families, conduct comprehensive evaluations of patients with positive TBI 

screens, and develop and implement rehabilitation and community reintegration 

plans. 

VA Polytrauma Points of Contact are available at 48 VAMCs without specialized 

rehabilitation teams. These Points of Contact, established in 2007, are knowledgeable about the VA Polytrauma/TBI System of care and coordinate case management 

and referrals throughout the system. 

Throughout the Polytrauma/TBI System of Care, we have established a comprehensive process for coordinating support efforts and providing information for 

each patient and family member. Specialized rehabilitation initiatives at the PRCs 

include: 

• In 2007, VA developed and implemented Transitional Rehabilitation Programs 

at each PRC. These 10-bed residential units provide rehabilitation in a home-like 

environment to facilitate community reintegration for Veterans and their families, 

focus on developing standardized program measures, and investigate opportunities 

to collaborate with other entities providing community-based reintegration services. 

Through December 2009, 188 Veterans and Servicemembers have participated in 

this program spending, on average, about 3 months in transitional rehabilitation. 

Almost 90 percent of these individuals return to active duty, or transition to independent living. 

• Beginning in 2007, VA implemented a specialized Emerging Consciousness care 

path at the four PRCs to serve those Veterans with severe TBI who are slow to recover consciousness. Patients with disorders of consciousness (e.g., comatose) require 

10 

high complexity and intensity of medical services and resources in order to improve 

their level of responsiveness and decrease medical complications. To meet the challenges of caring for these individuals, VA collaboratively developed this care path 

with subject matter experts from DVBIC and the private sector. VA and DVBIC continue to collaborate on research in this area, and incorporate improvements to the 

care path in response to advances in science. From January 2007 through December 2009, 87 Veterans and Servicemembers have been admitted in VA Emerging 

Consciousness care. Approximately 70 percent of these patients emerge to consciousness before leaving inpatient rehabilitation. 

• In October 2008, all inpatients with TBI at VA PRCs began receiving special 

ocular health and visual function examinations based upon research conducted at 

our Palo Alto PRC. To date, 840 inpatients have received these examinations. 

• In April 2009, VA began an advanced technology initiative to establish assistive 

technology laboratories at the four PRCs. These facilities will serve as a resource 

for VA health care, and provide the most advanced technologies to Veterans and 

Servicemembers with ongoing needs related to cognitive impairment, sensory impairment, computer access, communication deficits, wheeled mobility, self-care, and 

home telehealth. 

• VA continues to optimize its Polytrauma Telehealth Network to facilitate provider-to-provider and provider-to-family coordination, as well as consultation from 

PRCs and Network Sites to other providers and facilities. Currently, about 30 to 40 

videoconference calls are made monthly across the Network Sites to VA and DOD 

facilities. New Polytrauma Telehealth Network initiatives in development include 

home buddy systems to maintain contact with patients with mild TBI or amputation, and remote delivery of speech therapy services to Veterans in rural areas. 

• The PRCs have been renovated to optimize healing in an environment respectful of military service. Military liaisons located at the centers help to support active 

duty patients and to coordinate interdepartmental issues for patients and their families. Working with the Fisher House Foundation, we are also able to provide housing and other logistical support for family members staying with a Veteran or Servicemember during their recovery at one of our facilities. 

• In fiscal year (FY) 2009, 22,324 unique outpatients had 83,794 total clinic visits 

across the Polytrauma Support Clinic Team sites; an increase of over 30 percent 

from FY 2008. 

In addition to improvements in the Polytrauma/TBI System of Care, VA developed 

and implemented the TBI Screening and Evaluation Program for all OEF/OIF Veterans who receive care within VA. From April 2007 through February 2010: 

• 397,904 OEF/OIF Veterans have been screened; 

• 54,675 who screened positive have been evaluated and received follow-up care 

and services appropriate for their diagnosis and their symptoms; 

• 29,819 have been confirmed with a diagnosis of having incurred a mild TBI; 

• Over 90 percent of all Veterans who are screened are determined not to have 

TBI, but all who screen positive and complete a comprehensive evaluation are referred for appropriate treatment. 

VA developed and implemented a national template to ensure that it provides 

every Veteran receiving inpatient or outpatient treatment for TBI, who requires ongoing rehabilitation care, an individualized rehabilitation and community reintegration plan, as required by section 1702 of Public Law 110–181 (38 U.S.C. § 1710C). 

VA integrates this national template into the electronic medical record, and includes 

results of the comprehensive assessment, measurable goals, and recommendations 

for specific rehabilitative treatments. The patient and family participate in developing the treatment plan and receive a copy of the plan. Since April 2009, 8,373 of 

these plans have been completed and documented for Veterans who receive ongoing 

rehabilitative care in VA. 

Section 1703 of Public Law 110–181 (38 U.S.C. § 1710E) permits VA, in implementing and carrying out § 1710C of title 38, to provide hospital care and medical 

services through cooperative agreements with appropriate public or private entities 

that have established long-term neurobehavioral rehabilitation and recovery programs. VA continues to increase collaborations with private sector facilities to successfully meet the individualized needs of Veterans and complement care in cases 

when VA cannot readily provide the needed services, or cases where the required 

care is geographically inaccessible. VA medical facilities have identified private sector resources within their catchment area that have expertise in neurobehavioral rehabilitation and recovery programs for TBI. In FY 2009, 3,708 enrolled Veterans 

with TBI received inpatient and outpatient hospital care and medical services from 

public and private entities, with a total disbursement of over $21 million. 

11 

VA has developed, and continues to enhance, policies regarding comprehensive 

long-term care for post-acute TBI rehabilitation that includes residential, community and home-based components utilizing interdisciplinary treatment teams. In 

2007, VA chartered the Polytrauma Rehabilitation and Extended Care Task Force, 

to address the long-term care needs of seriously injured OEF/OIF Veterans, including rehabilitative care. As a result of this Task Force, VA developed approaches to 

meet the long-term care needs of Veterans with TBI through enhancements to the 

current spectrum of long-term care programs and services. Changes implemented include expansion and age-appropriate modifications in Home-Based Primary Care 

(HBPC) and Adult Day Health Care, development of volunteer home respite, geographic expansion and staff training for HBPC, implementation of Medical Foster 

Home for Veterans with TBI, and integration of home Telehealth. Last, TBI was a 

Select Program in VA’s budget request, as directed in H.R. Report No. 110–775, accompanying Pub. L. 110–329, and VA has noted Congress’ direction to continue this 

designation. In FY 2010, $231.9 million has been programmed for TBI care for all 

Veterans; $58.2 million is programmed for OEF/OIF Veterans. 

VA/DOD COLLABORATIONS

VA and DOD have shared a longstanding integrated collaboration in the area of 

TBI through the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC). Since 1992, 

DVBIC staff members have been integrated with VA Lead TBI Centers (now Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers) to collect and coordinate surveillance of long-term 

treatment outcomes for patients with TBI. Other significant initiatives that have resulted from the ongoing collaboration between VA and DVBIC include: developing 

collaborative clinical research protocols; developing and implementing best clinical 

practices for TBI; developing materials for families and caregivers of Veterans with 

TBI; developing integrated education and training curriculum on TBI, and joint 

training of VA and DOD heath care providers; and coordinating the development of 

the best strategies and policies regarding TBI for implementation by VA and DOD. 

In addition to the longstanding affiliation with DVBIC, since 2007, VA has collaborated with DOD to develop implementation plans for Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) and the associated injury registries, including Centers for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, Extremity Injuries and Amputation, 

Hearing Loss and Auditory System Injuries, and Vision. VA has assigned personnel 

at the Center for Psychological Health and TBI, and at the Vision Center. VA continues to be involved in working groups with DOD representatives to assist in developing concepts of operations and plans for the Hearing Loss and Auditory System 

Injuries Center and the Center for Extremity Injuries and Amputation. 

VA has also collaborated with DOD to develop and implement several unprecedented initiatives that are improving care and services for those with TBI. VA, in 

collaboration with DOD and DVBIC, implemented a 5-year pilot program to assess 

the effectiveness of providing assisted living (AL) services to Veterans with TBI, as 

required by section 1705 of Public Law 110–181. The AL-TBI pilot program is being 

administered through contracts with brain injury residential living programs that 

provide individualized treatment models of care to accommodate the specialized 

needs of patients with TBI. Currently, four Veterans with moderate to severe TBI 

have been placed in private facilities that specialize in providing rehabilitation services for TBI (residing in Virginia, Wisconsin, Kentucky and Texas). Up to 26 Veterans are projected to be enrolled in the program in FY 2010 and 14 more in FY 

2011. We are collecting and assessing outcome data on health information, functional status, satisfaction with care, and quality of life. VA will submit a final report 

to Congress at the conclusion of the program in 2013. 

VA, in collaboration with DVBIC, developed a uniform training curriculum for 

family members in providing care and assistance to Servicemembers and Veterans 

with TBI: ‘‘Traumatic Brain Injury: A Guide for Caregivers of Servicemembers and 

Veterans.’’ The final version of the curriculum was approved by the Defense Health 

Board, and dissemination of the curriculum is pending final approval from the Secretaries of DOD and VA. In 2009, VA and DOD collaboratively developed clinical 

practice guidelines for mild TBI and deployed this to health care providers, as well 

as recommendations in the areas of cognitive rehabilitation, drivers’ training, and 

managing the co-occurrence of TBI, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and 

pain. 

In 2009, the VA-led collaboration with DOD and the National Center for Health 

Statistics produced revisions to the International Classification of Diseases, Clinical 

Modification (ICD–9-CM) diagnostic codes for TBI, resulting in significant improvements in the identification, classification, tracking, and reporting of TBI and its associated symptoms. 

12 

Finally, VA maintains ongoing collaborations with other Federal agencies to leverage resources and collective efforts in advancing the care and services for those with 

TBI. The most recent notable collaborations include: 

• In 2009, VA began collaborating with the National Institute on Disability and 

Rehabilitation Research TBI Model Systems to collect and benchmark VA rehabilitation and longitudinal functional outcomes and establish a TBI Veterans Health 

Registry, as required by section 1704 of Public Law 110–181. • Since 2009, VA has collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 

National Institutes of Health (NIH), and DOD in accordance with section 3(c) of 

Public Law 110–206 (42 U.S.C.A. § 280b–1d), the Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 

2008 to: (1) determine how best to improve the collection and dissemination of information on the incidence and the prevalence of TBI among persons who were formerly in the military; and (2) make recommendations on the manner in which CDC, 

NIH, DOD, and VA can further collaborate on the development and improvement 

of TBI diagnostic tools and treatments. A report to Congress is being prepared regarding this collaborative effort. 

THE FEDERAL RECOVERY COORDINATION PROGRAM

The Federal Recovery Coordination Program (FRCP) serves an important function 

in ensuring that severely injured Veterans and Servicemembers receive access to 

the benefits and care they need to recover. Beginning in 2008, FRCP has helped coordinate and access Federal, state and local programs, benefits and services for severely wounded, ill and injured Servicemembers, Veterans, and their families 

through recovery, rehabilitation, and reintegration into the community. The Program is a joint program of DOD and VA, with VA serving as the administrative 

home. 

The Program has grown since enrolling the first client in February 2008. Not 

every individual referred to the Program meets enrollment criteria or needs the full 

services of FRCP. Some individuals are enrolled for a period of time and then determine that they no longer need the Program’s services. Currently, 513 clients are enrolled and another 41 individuals are being evaluated for enrollment, and another 

451 have received assistance. Anyone can return for re-enrollment or additional assistance if the problems are not resolved or if new problems develop. 

Recovering Servicemembers and Veterans are referred to FRCP from a variety of 

sources, including from the Servicemember’s command, members of the interdisciplinary treatment team, case managers, families or clients already in the Program, 

Veterans Service Organizations and other non-governmental organizations. Generally, those individuals whose recovery is likely to require a complex array of specialists, transfers to multiple facilities, and long periods of rehabilitation are referred. 

FRCP outreach efforts include brochures, a presence on VA’s OEF/OIF Web site, 

participation and presentations at local, state and national events. Our 1–800 number, new in April 2009, provides another avenue for referral or assistance. When a 

referral is made, a Federal Recovery Coordinator (FRC) conducts an evaluation that 

serves as the basis for problem identification and determination of the appropriate 

level of service. 

FRCs coordinate benefits and services for their clients through the various transitions associated with recovery and return to civilian life. FRCs work with military 

liaisons, members of the Services’ Wounded Warrior Programs, Service recovery care 

coordinators, TRICARE beneficiary counseling and assistance coordinators, VA vocational and rehabilitation counselors, military and VA facility case managers, VA Liaisons, VA specialty care managers, Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and 

Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) OEF/OIF case managers, VBA benefits 

counselors, and others. 

Each enrolled client receives a Federal Individual Recovery Plan (FIRP). The 

FIRP, based on the goals and needs of the Servicemember or Veteran and upon 

input from their family or caregiver, is designed to efficiently and effectively move 

clients through transitions by identifying the appropriate services and benefits. The 

FRCs, with input and assistance from interdisciplinary team members and case 

managers, implement the FIRP by working with existing governmental and nongovernmental personnel and resources. 

FRCP staffing has grown to meet the Program’s needs. Eight FRCs were initially 

hired in January 2008. We are adding 5 additional FRCs to the 20 current positions 

in order to meet the growth, and success, of the Program. Most of these new hires 

will be placed at VA PRCs adding additional support for severely wounded, ill and 

injured Servicemembers and Veterans. The table below shows the current locations, 

as well as the locations for the new FRCs. 

13 

Facility Name and Location Total FRCs 

Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC ................................................................................ 3 

National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD ........................................................................................ 3 

Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio TX .......................................................................................... 4 

Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA ...................................................................................................... 3 

Camp Pendleton, CA ................................................................................................................................. 1 

Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Augusta, GA ....................................................................................... 2 

James A. Haley VAMC, Tampa, FL ............................................................................................................ 1 

Providence VAMC, Providence, RI ............................................................................................................. 1 

Michael E Debakey VAMC, Houston, TX .................................................................................................... 1 

USSOCOM Care Coalition, Tampa, FL ....................................................................................................... 1 

Richmond VAMC Polytrauma, VA .............................................................................................................. 2 (new hire) 

Palo Alto VAMC Polytrauma, CA ............................................................................................................... 2 (new hire) 

Navy Safe Harbor, DC ............................................................................................................................... 1 (new hire) 

Total (FRC) FTE ................................................................................................................................ 25 

Administrative staff includes an Executive Director, two Deputies (one for Benefits and one for Health), an Executive Assistant, an Administrative Officer and two 

Staff Assistants. 

The FRCP is VA’s lead for the National Resource Directory (NRD), an online partnership of the U.S. Departments of Defense, Labor and Veterans Affairs for wounded, ill or injured Servicemembers, Veterans, their families, caregivers, and supporting providers. The NRD is a comprehensive online tool available worldwide with 

over 10,000 Federal, state and local resources organized into nine easily searchable 

topic areas including: benefits and compensation, families and caregivers, employment, education and training, health care, housing, transportation and travel, and 

homeless assistance. The NRD has an average of 1,500 visitors a day where they 

access an average of 15,000 page views. Over 300,000 other Web sites now link to 

the NRD. 

FRCP’s success rests in its extraordinary and well-trained problem solving professional staff. We have learned a great deal over the past 2 years and have been able 

to respond quickly to developing needs or problems. We are looking forward to the 

results from a current Government Accountability Office program evaluation and 

those from our satisfaction survey. This input will guide the Program’s future development and adaptation. 

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, thank you again for the opportunity to speak about VA’s efforts to 

support injured transitioning Servicemembers and Veterans. This concludes my prepared statement. 

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA TO

LUCILLE B. BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Question 1. The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Preliminary Assessment on the Readjustment Needs of Veterans, Servicemembers and their families notes that there 

is a critical shortage of health care specialists. Given that the Mohonk Report on 

Disorders of Consciousness (DoC) notes that some 40% of persons with DoC are 

misdiagnosed, and that there are few rehabilitation facilities in the U.S. that specialize in the assessment and treatment of patients with DoC, how is the VA able 

to educate and train TBI specialists to provide accurate diagnosis and appropriate 

treatment? 

Response. VA proactively maintains capacity for the treatment of Veterans and 

Servicemembers with TBI, including development of the health care specialists who 

serve this population. Steps taken to achieve this goal include establishment of 

Emerging Consciousness (EC) Programs at the four Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers (PRC), collaborations with specialists from DOD, academia, and the private sector to develop the EC programs and clinical guidance, and ongoing efforts to educate 

and train current and future clinicians. 

VA partnered with specialists from the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center 

and from academia to develop the EC care pathways at the PRCs. This is a clinical 

algorithm that details the main elements of the specialized medical, nursing, therVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
14 

apy, technology, and family education and support services deployed for the care of 

patients in an emerging consciousness state. Participating in the development of the 

care pathways were some of the main authors of the Mohonk Report, including Dr. 

John Whyte, Director Moss Rehabilitation and Research Center, and Dr. Joseph 

Giacino, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network. More recently, the EC Programs have 

partnered with the VA Neurology Service to perform diagnostics and active monitoring of brain activity during the recovery phase. The care pathways and technologies are continually updated in response to advances in science. 

EC Programs at the PRCs maintain the highest standards of accreditation and 

certification for rehabilitation facilities awarded by the Commission on Accreditation 

of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). CARF is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of 

health and human services in the area of medical rehabilitation, and VA EC programs are CARF accredited for Brain Injury Rehabilitation. CARF accreditation certifies that the provider meets internationally recognized standards and is committed 

to continually improving services through the quality, value, and optimal outcomes 

of services that are delivered. 

VA is also a proven leader in recruiting, education, and training of healthcare providers. VA has made great strides in attracting and retaining high quality clinicians 

and researchers with specialization in such areas as diagnosis, rehabilitation, and 

treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury and disorders of consciousness. VA’s recruitment efforts include hiring incentives, school loan forgiveness plans, performance 

based advancement opportunities, ample opportunities for professional growth, and 

strong ties with the academic and research communities. 

Specifically, in the area of emerging consciousness, VHA’s Office of Rehabilitation 

Services organizes yearly conferences dedicated to this topic and invites clinicians 

from the PRCs and experts from academic programs to share knowledge and experience. Clinicians have the opportunity to attend grand rounds and continuing education programs to stay current with new developments in the field. Rehabilitation 

specialists at the PRCs actively train the next generation of health professionals (i.e. 

fellows and allied health professionals) through the EC Program. The leadership of 

the EC Programs confer at least monthly about consistency of clinical care, outcomes management, and research projects. In conjunction with the non-VA EC Consortium, the VA EC Programs work on the latest innovations of the Mohonk Report 

and on planning ongoing collaborations in this area of expertise. 

Question 2. How many Veterans with severe TBI are currently being treated in 

the Polytrauma sites and how many Veterans with TBI are currently living in VA 

Community Living Centers? 

Response. Through the second quarter of Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, the Polytrauma 

Rehabilitation Centers (PRC) treated 145 patients in their inpatient bed units; 40 

patients are currently being treated at the PRCs. Through the second quarter of FY 

2010, 376 Veterans with TBI were served in one of the VA Community Living Centers (CLC); 26 of those were Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation 

Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). At the end of Q2 FY 2010, 9 Veterans with TBI were 

treated in a CLC bed unit; none of those were OEF/OIF Veterans. 

Additionally, during the first five months of FY 2010, 11,376 unique outpatient 

Veterans had 30,720 total clinic visits for interdisciplinary outpatient rehabilitation 

services across the Polytrauma Support Clinic Team sites. 

Question 3. The Secretary’s report notes that the VA developed an Emerging Consciousness Program at the four Polytrauma centers. How many Veterans have been 

served? What have the outcomes been? 

Response. Beginning in 2007, VA implemented a specialized Emerging Consciousness (EC) clinical care pathway at the four PRCs to serve those Veterans with severe TBI who are slow to recover consciousness. From January 2007 through December 2009, 87 Veterans and Servicemembers were treated in the VA EC Programs. Approximately 70 percent of these patients emerged to consciousness before 

leaving inpatient rehabilitation. Of the remaining 27 patients, 5 emerged at a later 

date and 5 are deceased. The majority of the patients (70.3 percent) continue to receive services in the VA; 11 Veterans are at home with family and home health support; 4 are in VA Community Living Centers; and 5 are hospitalized in rehabilitation facilities (2 at the PRCs, and 3 at the Kessler Institute). 

Question 4. What is the status of the research being conducted on neutral adaptation for Emerging Consciousness? 

Response. The study centered at the Hines VA in Illinois is active and still accruing patients. Since the study is still ongoing, no data analysis have been performed. 

Question 5. What is the status of the research on the effectiveness of methylphenidate therapy during early TBI recovery? 

15 

Response. The existing research knowledge on the early use of methylphenidate 

(brand name Ritalin) in individuals with moderate to severe TBI reveals that it has 

no demonstrable effect on individuals with a DoC, but it does improve specific areas 

of cognitive functioning (attention, arousal) in individuals who have emerged from 

coma. Methylphenidate is used commonly, but judiciously, in the VA polytrauma 

system of care at both the early and late phases of recovery after TBI. VA is collaborating through the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Consortium on a randomized, 

controlled trial of the effect of methylphenidate in individuals with early TBI, which 

will be continuing for at least the next 2–3 years. 

Question 6. There have been reports in the media about research and new findings about the value of functional imaging techniques to improve communication 

and rehabilitation for persons with DoC. Has the VA used these techniques? 

Response. Functional neuroimaging for TBI, particularly for individuals with DoC, 

remains a research tool. Advances in technology, technique and knowledge have 

greatly added to our understanding of brain injury. However, the specific clinical 

correlation of functional neuroimaging to real world activities is not well defined. 

There is no specific functional neuroimaging technology that has been used to enhance communication in individuals with a TBI/DOC. An ongoing VA Rehabilitation 

Research & Development research project utilizes functional neuroimaging (fMRI) 

as an outcome tool to assess the impact of ‘‘familiar voice’’ (repeated spoken paragraphs by family members) on Veterans with a DOC; results are not anticipated for 

at least 2 to 3 years. 

Question 7. Please provide information, including the name and address, on local 

contract providers or VA medical centers which provided neuropsychological evaluations for Veterans claiming service-connected compensation due to TBI during FY 

2009. 

Response. In order to collect the information requested, VHA will survey the field 

facilities. We estimate that the time to survey the field and to consolidate responses 

will require additional time and we will provide this information later in July. 

Question 8. Please provide data on the number of Veterans who received a VHA 

or VHA local contract compensation and pension examination for TBI and the number of those who received a neuropsychological evaluation and testing at each location during FY 2009 and the first two quarters of FY 2010. 

Response. In order to provide the data requested, VHA will need additional time 

and will provide this information also in July . 

Question 9. What is the status of VA’s transformational activities pertaining to 

improving age-appropriate care in the Community Living Centers (CLC)? 

Response. VA has and continues to embed the provision of age-appropriate care 

in all major VA CLC conferences and education. VA has and will continue to work 

with all CLC disciplines in facilitating the design of care plans and activities to accommodate the specific interests and needs of the younger Veteran. For example, 

the care planning process itself has changed to what is known as the ‘‘I Care Plan’’. 

This has been implemented in many VA CLCs and was recently a major presentation at a CLC education conference. In this approach, the Veteran is identified by 

name, age, and interests prior to the discussion of the Veteran’s medical diagnosis. 

The plan of care then, is designed around personal preferences for sleep/wake cycles, 

food preferences, times for personal care, and includes the resident and family in 

the formulation of care goals. 

Question 10. What additional resources does VA require in order to improve the 

quality or availability of TBI care and rehabilitation? 

Response. VA has adequate resources to meet the needs of Veterans with TBI, 

and TBI continues to be a Select Program in VA budget submissions. In FY 2010, 

$231.1 million has been programmed for TBI care for all Veterans and $58.2 million 

is programmed for OEF/OIF Veterans. There are three specific areas where VA can 

benefit from support to improve TBI care and rehabilitation. This does not require 

‘‘additional resources’’, as much as a better understanding and support of VA in its 

current collaborations and initiatives: 

• An increased utilization of the VA Telehealth Network to allow for advanced access to a greater number of Veterans, in particular those from rural areas. 

• Continued efforts to proactively provide education on Post Deployment issues 

including TBI, mild TBI, polytrauma (including amputation), and Co-Morbid conditions such as pain, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other mental health issues. 

Ongoing support to educate clinicians across VA on advances in care, as well as 

training new VA clinicians, is necessary. 

• VA must sustain the TBI treatment and rehabilitation capabilities that have 

been developed in recent years by continuing to develop its future workforce. RehaVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
16 

bilitation clinicians are necessary to support expanded efforts to provide timely evaluations and needed ongoing rehabilitation care for the wide range of symptoms commonly seen following TBI and polytrauma. 

Question 11. What is the average daily census for the Polytrauma facilities or network sites, and are there wait times for admission to the facilities? 

Response. Occupancy rates at the four Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers (PRC) 

fluctuate over time and location. The occupancy rate across the PRCs was 68 percent for FY 2009. The four VA Centers operate between 12- and 18-inpatient beds 

staffed by specialty rehabilitation teams that provide acute interdisciplinary evaluation, medical management and rehabilitation services. 

At no time since the beginning of conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq has there been 

a ‘‘wait time’’ for admission to the VA Polytrauma Centers. Capabilities and capacity 

is maintained, and patients are admitted immediately upon medical referral and 

consistent with the patient’s medical condition. 

Question 12. What progress has been made on the proposed VHA Handbook 

1172.02 Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Transitional Bed Section, which was 

originally scheduled to be released in March 2010? 

Response. The VHA Handbook 1117.02 Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 

Transitional Bed Section was signed and issued by VA Under Secretary for Health 

on May 14, 2010. The document has been published on both the VHA Intranet and 

Internet Web sites. 

Question 13. What is the status of the report required to be submitted to Congress, on the pilot program for assessing the feasibility of assisted living services 

for Veterans with TBI? 

Response. The report to Congress on the Assisted Living Pilot for Veterans with 

TBI is due August 30, 2013. In anticipation of this report, VA continues to enroll 

eligible Veterans into the Pilot. These Veterans have TBI and require supervision 

and assistance with activities of daily living in order to enhance their rehabilitation, 

quality of living and community re-integration. Veterans are being placed in brain 

injury residential living programs in the private sector near their home communities. These programs provide individualized treatments to accommodate the specialized needs of patients with TBI. Case management services are provided by VA 

case managers with expertise in TBI. Outcome data are being collected that include 

demographic and health information, functional status, quality of life and satisfaction indices, and cost of care. 

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTION SUBMITTED BY HON. SHERROD BROWN TO

LUCILLE B. BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Question. What is VA doing regarding the Eye Trauma Registry and when can 

we expect it to be up and functional?’’ 

Response. VA and DOD continue to develop a Joint Defense and Veterans Eye Injury and Vision Registry (DVEIVR). VA has completed development of a data store 

to collect clinical data on Veterans with eye injuries and visual symptoms related 

to TBI. Initial testing was completed March 2010. DOD will implement a project 

similar to the VA functional data store by the end of the third quarter of FY 2010. 

This will be accomplished through use of the Joint Theater Trauma System. 

Approval was granted to begin the acquisition phase for development of the 

DVEIVR Phase 1 Pilot in May 2010. The DVEIVR is expected to be operational by 

June 2011. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. 

Now we will hear from Colonel Jaffee. 

STATEMENT OF COL. MICHAEL S. JAFFEE, M.D., NATIONAL DIRECTOR, DEFENSE AND VETERANS BRAIN INJURY CENTER 

(DVBIC), TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY PROGRAM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; ACCOMPANIED BY KATHERINE 

HELMICK, INTERIM SENIOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR TBI, 

DEFENSE CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL 

HEALTH AND TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY 

Colonel JAFFEE. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to discuss the progress that has been 

17 

made in the diagnosis and treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury 

(TBI), and the highly collaborative and fruitful relationship between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans 

Affairs. 

The high rate of TBI and blast-related concussion events are felt 

within each branch of the service and throughout both the DOD 

and VA health care systems. We have been providing acute management for the entire spectrum of Traumatic Brain Injury—mild, 

moderate, and severe. The vast majority of the Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Department of Defense are mild TBIs, also known as 

concussion. Almost 90 percent of individuals who sustain mild TBI 

will have a complete resolution of their symptoms within days or 

weeks of the incident. We have focused a lot of effort on the appropriate, safe management of these patients to avoid recurrent injuries during their recovery. 

Both the DOD and the VA have dedicated significant resources 

for the prevention, early detection, treatment, and rehabilitation of 

servicemembers and veterans with TBI. I will describe our efforts 

in these areas and how they support the direction of this Committee and the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and Health Programs Improvements Act of 2007. 

Prevention of TBI is a critical component of our overall strategy. 

Central to the preventative approach is the continued development 

of state-of-the-art personal protective equipment, along with a 

broad-based awareness campaign to provide servicemembers with 

strategies to mitigate risks both in a deployed location and at 

home. 

After prevention, we ensure our early detection efforts are directed at identifying potential TBI as close to the time of injury as 

possible. Mandatory concussion screening occurs at four levels: intheater; at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for all 

medically evacuated personnel; during the post-deployment health 

assessments and reassessments; and at VA facilities where veterans present for treatment. 

DOD has developed and proliferated—with the input of VA and 

civilian subject matter experts—a systematic method for conducting these screenings. The Military Acute Concussion Evaluation, or MACE, has been used for in-theater screening following an 

incident. DOD and VA also jointly developed and are using a 

screening tool in the post-deployment health assessment and reassessment and the VA’s TBI clinical Assessment. Both of these tools 

have been recommended to the DOD by the Institute of Medicine. 

Once TBI is identified, DOD, in collaboration with VA subject 

matter experts, developed guidelines for the management of concussion in mild TBI in-theater. These initiatives have been adapted 

by several of our NATO allies. 

For providers delivering care in the combat theater, we have introduced an electronic consult service for use by all service providers that connects them with a TBI expert—jointly manned by 

DOD and VA specialists. For care in the U.S., the DOD and VA 

partnered to develop evidence-based guidelines for the management of mild Traumatic Brain Injury. The Defense and Veterans 

Brain Injury Center, DVBIC, a congressionally-mandated collaboration between the DOD and VA, has facilitated or led a number of 

18 

TBI conferences, including focused approaches to managing minimally-conscious TBI patients, TBI patients with other clinical conditions to include PTSD, and efforts at cognitive rehabilitation. 

We have worked with the VA on the Assisted Living for Veterans 

with TBI project, and we helped establish a pilot age-appropriate 

TBI-specific assisted living program at one of nine State-owned 

comprehensive rehabilitation facilities. Simply put, the DOD and 

VA collaboration could not be stronger and more results oriented 

than what we have accomplished in this area. An independent article published by the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation cited 

that DVBIC collaboration between DOD and VA as the most fullydeveloped system of care in the U.S. for brain injury. Still, much 

remains unknown about the short- and long-term effects of blast 

injury on the brain, and so our research continues. 

Last year, DVBIC published the largest randomized-controlled 

trial of cognitive rehabilitation for moderate to severe patients. The 

DOD is leveraging the latest advances in stem cell regenerative 

medicine through a collaboration between the Uniformed Services 

University and NIH. The DOD has been recognized for innovative 

research utilizing the latest advances in neuroimaging. The DOD 

is leveraging national expertise and resources in TBI research 

through more than $200 million allocated through the congressionally directed Medical Research Program. 

Servicemember and family outreach is an equally strategic element of our educational efforts. At Congress’ direction, we assisted 

the development of a Family Caregiver Program to meet the needs 

of family members, and this included a panel with members from 

the VA and civilian subject matter experts. We have developed a 

number of award-winning multi-media educational initiatives to include partnerships with public television, Brainline.org. Finally, we 

have established a National Care Coordination Network identifying 

all personnel with TBI who have been evacuated from theater. 

They get regular follow-ups upon their return home, and this program is closely linked with the VA’s Polytrauma Federal Care Coordination System. 

We have had the benefit over the past several years of significantly increasing the number of civilian providers who are eligible 

to care for patients in our TRICARE network. We have been implementing a number of pilot initiatives to enhance our telemedicine 

projects in the rural outreach. 

The DOD, VA, and our civilian colleagues have performed extraordinary work across this country to advance our understanding 

of TBI, particularly as it relates to the unique nature of combat. 

Substantive progress has been made to implement the provisions 

of the 2007 law, and we are very pleased to have worked with the 

VA as colleagues in this endeavor. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I want to again 

thank you for your steadfast support of our Military Health System 

and your ongoing investment in Traumatic Brain Injury research 

and care. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Jaffee follows:] 

19 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COL. MICHAEL S. JAFFEE, M.D., NATIONAL DIRECTOR, DEFENSE AND VETERANS BRAIN INJURY CENTER (DVBIC), TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

PROGRAM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, Thank you for the opportunity to come 

before you today to discuss progress made in the diagnosis and treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), and the highly collaborative and fruitful relationship between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs 

(VA) in this vital area of medical research and treatment. Accompanying me today 

is Ms. Katherine Helmick, Interim Senior Executive Director for TBI at the Defense 

Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE). 

I am honored to be able to represent DOD, and the men and women who serve 

in our Military Health System. I am the National Director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC), a congressionally mandated collaboration between DOD and VA which is organized as a network of excellence across 17 DOD 

and VA sites with more than 225 professionals representing more than 20 different 

clinical disciplines. For the past two and a half years, the DVBIC has also operated 

as the primary operational TBI center of DCoE. Through these collaborations, I 

have been fortunate to work closely and collaboratively with our colleagues across 

DOD and VA for the last several years. I am proud of what we have accomplished 

together to advance the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Servicemembers 

and veterans with TBI.I am confident in our organization’s ability to serve as a national asset for helping Servicemembers and veterans maximize their functional 

abilities and decrease or eliminate their TBI-related disabilities. 

The high rate of TBI and blast-related concussion events resulting from current 

combat operations directly impacts the health and safety of individual Servicemembers and subsequently the level of unit readiness and troop retention. The impacts of TBI are felt within each branch of the Service and throughout both the 

DOD and VA health care systems. Since January 2003, over 134,000 Servicemembers have been identified within our surveillance system as having sustained 

a clinician-confirmed TBI, most of which are considered mild TBI or a concussion 

( mTBI). It is important to note almost 90 percent of individuals who sustain mTBI 

will have complete resolution of their symptoms within days or weeks of the incident. Our in-theater management guidelines for TBI emphasize safety and prevention of recurrent injuries until recovery has occurred. 

With the support of Congress, both Departments have dedicated significant resources to the prevention, early detection, treatment, and rehabilitation of Servicemembers and veterans with TBI. Ongoing medical research continues to contribute 

to our understanding of each of these activities. I will describe our efforts in these 

areas. I will also highlight the comprehensive professional medical education and 

family outreach undertaken to ensure our military and VA practitioners and the 

families who must help with managing this condition are aware of the most current 

findings and tools to assess and treat TBI. All of these activities support the direction of this Committee as reflected in the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury and 

Health Programs Improvements Act of 2007. 

PREVENTION

Prevention of TBI is a critical component of our overall strategy. Central to the 

preventative approach is the continued development of state-of-the-art personal protective equipment (PPE). The army combat helmet/light weight helmet was developed for today’s battlefield environment, and a next generation enhanced combat 

helmet is under development. The Headborne System—a joint Service future initiative—is being engineered to provide added protection from blast injury. 

Along with PPE investments, the Department has engaged in a broad-based 

awareness campaign to provide Servicemembers with strategies to mitigate risks 

both in a deployed location and at home to include ballistics protection and adherence to use of seatbelts. 

EARLY DETECTION

Our early detection efforts are focused on identifying potential TBI as close to the 

time of injury as possible. Mandatory concussion screening occurs at four levels to 

maximize treatment opportunities for Servicemembers who may have sustained a 

concussion: in-theater; at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany (for all 

medically evacuated personnel); during Post Deployment Health Assessments and 

Reassessments; and at VA facilities when veterans are treated. 

DOD has developed and proliferated—with the input of the Services, VA, and civilian subject matter experts—a systematic method for conducting these screenings 

20 

with the appropriate tools. The Military Acute Concussion Evaluation (MACE) has 

been used for in-theater screening following an incident. This evaluation tool has 

been independently reviewed by the Institute of Medicine and recommended for continued use in assessing combat-related TBI. We continue a cycle of process improvement for in-theater screening and management. The latest proposed guidelines include a transition to mandatory evaluation of all Servicemembers involved in an incident considered associated with risk of concussion. DOD and VA jointly developed 

and are using a screening tool in the Post-Deployment Health Assessment and Reassessment and the VA TBI Clinical Reminder. This tool is an adaptation of the 

Brief TBI Screen and has been recommended to DOD by the Institute of Medicine 

for this purpose. 

TREATMENT

DOD has published clinical practice guidelines for both in-theater and CONUSbased management of mTBI (‘‘Mild TBI Clinical Guidelines in the Deployed Setting’’ 

and ‘‘Mild TBI Clinical Guidance’’), and developed tailored algorithms for use by 

medics/corpsmen, an initial evaluation, and a more comprehensive evaluation. 

NATO countries have used adaptations of the MACE and DOD clinical guidelines 

as a template for their own militaries. 

For providers delivering care in the combat theater, we have introduced an electronic consult service for use by all Service providers to connect them with a TBI 

expert—jointly manned by DOD and VA specialists. This consult service has proven 

to be a useful tool to deployed medical staffs. 

DOD and VA worked closely on developing and issuing evidence-based CONUS 

guidelines for management of mTBI. We issued these guidelines in April 2009, to 

providers in both organizations, assisting them with patients having subacute or 

chronic (more than 90 days) mTBI. These guidelines allow Servicemembers to receive care from their primary care providers, closest to home and family support. 

When required, referrals are made to TBI specialists at designated facilities. 

For more severe categories of TBI, we have disseminated several guidelines for 

use in theater, and have sponsored the development of specialist guidelines such as 

those from the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses. We have also provided 

consultation in the development of civilian guidelines such as those developed by the 

American College of Emergency Physicians. 

To advance our understanding of changes in neurocognitive abilities, we have implemented a program of baseline, pre-deployment cognitive evaluation. Introduced 

in 2008, this baseline test better informs return-to-duty determinations in theater 

following a concussion injury. 

The DVBIC also facilitated a consensus conference on programs for minimally 

conscious TBI patients which included DOD, VA, and civilian subject matter experts. This conference was instrumental in helping inform further development of 

relevant programs to manage this population. 

Finally, our clinical guidelines recognize there are often co-morbidities with TBI 

cases, to include depression, post-traumatic stress and substance use disorders, and 

other extremity injuries. To better understand this, the DVBIC co-sponsored with 

the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, an international symposium on behavioral health and TBI. TBI case management demands an interdisciplinary endeavor 

that must incorporate and meld various clinical elements including neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, neuropsychology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation. 

DOD and VA have worked to ensure our TBI clinical guidelines represent the input 

from this diverse set of medical specialists. 

An independent article published by the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 

cited the DVBIC collaboration between DOD and VA as the most fully developed 

system of care in the United States for brain injury. 

REHABILITATION/RECOVERY/REINTEGRATION

Rehabilitation is an essential component of our TBI program, with a focused approach on cognitive rehabilitation. In 2009, we hosted the leading experts in this 

country—from DOD, VA, and the civilian sector—to develop and issue clinical guidance for cognitive rehabilitation programs based on available evidence. Fourteen 

DOD military treatment facilities will use these guidelines in a controlled, step-wise 

process to assess the effectiveness of these guidelines on patient outcomes. 

The DVBIC has worked with VA on the Assisted Living for Veterans with TBI 

project. We have collaborated with VA in their exploration of means to contract with 

civilian facilities to serve veterans. We helped establish a pilot age-appropriate TBIspecific assisted living program with multidisciplinary rehabilitation and assistive 

technology at one of nine state-owned comprehensive rehabilitation facilities. I was 

21 

pleased to see VA issuance of a Request for Information from the industry just last 

month to continue to move forward with this initiative. 

ONGOING RESEARCH

The short and long-term effects of blast injury on the brain are still not completely known. DOD has made important contributions to the medical literature 

with our own research, to include a history of published, successful randomized-controlled clinical trials and several awards from national professional organizations. 

The Medical Research and Materiel Command and DVBIC convened a consensus 

conference with 75 experts identifying scientific evidence supporting the importance 

of blast injury. Last year, DVBIC published the largest randomized controlled trial 

of cognitive rehabilitation for moderate-severe patients. The Department’s TBI research contributions were recognized in the external technical report on mTBI in 

DOD conducted by the Survivability/Vulnerability Information Analysis Center 

which stated in its conclusion: 

‘‘Even within the limited existing literature, it is evident that researchers 

are now making use of screening criteria, instruments, and other resources 

developed and made available through DVBIC. The DVBIC now plays a 

central role in performing and advancing research that will directly benefit 

military Servicemembers and veterans with TBI.’’ 

With the support of Congress, DOD is leveraging national expertise and resources 

in TBI research through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program by 

investing more than $200 million to academic researchers after a process of scientific and programmatic review that included our VA colleagues. 

We are working on innovative ways to enhance our system to fast-track promising 

research initiatives and findings, and rapidly identify gaps such as the paucity of 

research findings regarding clinical outcomes from cognitive rehabilitation in the 

concussion population, as well as direct resources to address these gaps. 

DOD and VA are collaborating further with other Federal agencies on 

translational biophysics, proteomics, and other blast-related projects. 

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION & PATIENT OUTREACH

DOD and VA have worked closely to ensure our research into best practices and 

evidence-based medical guidance is rapidly distributed to the field. Since 2007, we 

have held annual conferences to educate our providers on the most current research 

and evidence-based clinical care guidelines for TBI. Our most recent conference in 

2009, was attended by over 800 DOD and VA clinicians. In addition, DOD and VA 

have developed a series of educational modules for providers of all skill levels, which 

is accessible via our internal web-based educational platform, MHS Learn. 

Servicemember and family outreach is an equally strategic element of our educational efforts. DOD has developed TBI education modules appropriate for all Servicemembers, and include self-help materials for dealing with a range of post-concussive symptoms. At Congress’ direction, DVBIC facilitated a panel of the Defense 

Health Board to oversee development of a Family Caregiver Program to meet the 

needs of family members, providing them with consistent health information and 

tools to cope with daily challenges of caregiving. 

A recent RAND report recognized DOD and DVBIC educational products for their 

clinical accuracy and effective risk communication. 

Brainline.org is a multimedia project that provides information on preventing, 

treating, and living with TBI. Funded by DVBIC and delivered by WETA, the public 

radio and television network in Washington, DC, Brainline.org has reached a very 

broad audience of TBI patients and families. Additionally, we are using social networking media to connect family members with others who have gone through similar experiences. 

Finally, DVBIC has established a national care coordination network, identifying 

all personnel with TBI who have been evacuated from theater. A care coordinator 

contacts the Servicemember at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months following injury, and determines what, if any, additional resources are needed to meet the Servicemember’s 

needs. DVBIC Regional Care Coordinators (RCCs) work to ensure optimal care and 

recovery for Servicemembers and veterans with TBI whose rehabilitation and return 

to community do not always follow a strict linear path, or whose injury may result 

in cognitive, social, behavioral, or physical deficits which prevent them from accessing available systems of care. RCCs also follow Servicemembers and veterans with 

TBIs longitudinally to help avert poor outcomes and improve our understanding of 

the many factors related to outcome following TBI. This program is linked with the 

VA Polytrauma Federal Care Coordination System and with DCoE’s Outreach CenVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
22 

ter, providing 24 hours a day/7 days per week support to patients, family members, 

and providers. 

OTHER FEDERAL COLLABORATION

While our brain injury collaborative efforts with VA have spanned two decades, 

we have worked across the Federal health sector on important national efforts to 

advance our research base. We worked closely with the Centers for Disease Control 

and Prevention (CDC) to select the appropriate International Classification of Disease codes for TBI surveillance. We are also working with the CDC to extend our 

education to rural and medically underserved areas for providers in these communities who may be treating Guard and Reserve members. 

DOD, VA, and the Department of Education’s TBI Model Systems of the National 

Institute for Disability Rehabilitation Research are collaborating to coordinate the 

important TBI registry initiatives we have underway. DOD is collaborating with the 

Department of Labor’s ‘‘America’s Heroes at Work’’ initiative providing education to 

employers enhancing incorporation of veterans with TBI into the workforce. 

CONCLUSION

DOD, VA, and civilian colleagues have performed extraordinary work across this 

country to advance our understanding of TBI, particularly as it relates to the unique 

nature of combat. 

DOD and VA experience has been one of intense collaboration—typified by open, 

fact-driven analysis, research, and dissemination of evidence-based findings. I am 

proud the DVBIC has been at the center of this collaboration—facilitating and deepening our joint efforts, inspired by the sacrifices of the Servicemembers, veterans, 

and families we serve. We are developing a system that allows for a more rapid and 

proactive approach to optimizing our systems of care for our wounded warriors with 

TBI. 

Substantive progress has been made to implement the provisions of the 2007 law, 

and we are pleased to work with our VA colleagues in this endeavor. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, I want to thank you again for your 

steadfast support of our Military Health System and your ongoing investment in 

Traumatic Brain Injury research and care. I look forward to your questions. 

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA TO

COL. MICHAEL S. JAFFEE, M.D., NATIONAL DIRECTOR, DEFENSE AND VETERANS

BRAIN INJURY CENTER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

EARLY DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

Question 1. Early diagnosis and treatment is key to having positive outcomes after 

TBI. What is DOD doing to enforce adherence to the screening and rest standards 

after a servicemember is exposed to a TBI causing event. 

Response. The Department of Defense currently does not enforce adherence to 

screening and rest standards. However, DOD must continue improving our processes to ensure that every Servicemember exposed to a TBI event received the appropriate diagnosis and treatment. To this end, we will continue to review how we 

can best enforce standards across Services and in theater. 

DOD is currently re-evaluating revisions to current guidelines, originally developed in 2006, for the acute management of concussion/mild Traumatic Brain Injury 

in the deployed setting to reinforce the importance of early diagnosis and treatment 

as well as a recovery period to prevent further injury. Currently, the Department 

conducts baseline cognitive tests used to inform post-concussion evaluations. DOD 

employs evidence-based tools for concussion screening acutely following injury and 

during mandatory post-deployment evaluation. Current screening tools assess multiple symptoms in addition to cognition and the assessments are incorporated into 

the Post Deployment Health Assessment and the VA TBI Clinical assessments. 

We are also developing clinical practice guideline for rest standards for those who 

are diagnosed with any symptoms concussion or TBI. While guidelines are not adequate to enforce adherence, we are educating and training Servicemembers, including the medical community and line leadership, regarding approaches to screening 

and treatment for concussion/mild TBI. 

23 

DOD DATA SHARING WITH VA

Question 2. How is DOD making data, such as predeployment cognitive baseline 

screenings, available to VA for use in their treatment of servicemembers and veterans? 

Response. DOD will provide TBI data, such as predeployment cognitive baseline 

screenings, to VA for use in their treatment of Servicemembers and veterans by December 2010. To date, more than 500,000 multiservice baseline assessments have 

been collected using the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics, a Government off-the-shelf product, to collect baseline cognitive data on deploying Servicemembers. According to the VA, they will begin implementing technical solutions to 

enable VA providers to view DOD neuropsychological assessment data by June 30, 

2011. 

COMORBIDITIES ASSOCIATED WITH TBI

Question 3. Multiple comorbidities are associated with TBI, including vision impairment, hearing loss and tinnitus, and the frequency with which servicemembers 

suffer amputations or other severe extremity injuries. Despite substantial funding 

provided for the purpose, why has there been virtually no discernable progress in 

establishing the vision, amputation and extremity injury, and hearing loss centers 

of excellence, as mandated by the FY 2008 and FY 2009 NDAAs? 

Response. The Department has made progress in establishing the vision, traumatic extremity injury and amputation, and hearing loss centers of excellence 

(COE). Although progress toward establishing these centers of excellence has been 

slow, the Department has never lost its focus on the care of the wounded warriors. 

Working in coordination with our VA and private-care partners, we continue to provide high quality care for wounded warriors in multiple clinical centers in the US 

and overseas. Milestones for establishment of the centers of excellence are provided 

below: 

• Feb 2010—Deputy Secretary of Defense delegated authority to Under Secretary 

of Defense (Personnel & Readiness) to establish centers of excellence. 

• May 2010—Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel & Readiness) established the 

centers and assigned each center to lead Service Component: 

– Vision—Navy 

– Hearing—Air Force 

– Traumatic extremity Injuries/Amputations—Army 

• In May 2010, the VCE sponsored Vision Research Program awarded $10M for 

Vision Research primarily focused on the management of visual dysfunction with 

TBI. 

• In April 2010, $1.86M was provided to the Hearing COE to be used for contracts, equipment and information management solution to electronic networking. 

The Hearing COE is also focusing on developing the Joint Hearing Registry with 

VA and the Services. The Registry will used for the tracking of the diagnosis, surgical intervention or other operative treatment for each case of hearing loss and auditory system injury incurred by a member of the Armed Forces while serving on 

active duty. 

• The Traumatic Extremity Injuries and Amputations COE had not received 

funding in FY 2009 or FY 2010. However, in collaboration with the VA, DOD is fully 

engaged with continuing the DOD and VA programs for extremity injuries and amputations. 

• Funding profile for each of CoEs provided in table below: 

Center of Excellence (CoE) FY 2009 FY 2010 

Vision CoE 

DOD O&M ............................................................................................................ $3.00M $6.84M 

VA O&M ............................................................................................................... $0.38M $1.10M 

DOD MILCON ....................................................................................................... $4.05M 

O&M /MILCON Total ................................................................................... $7.43M $7.94M 

Hearing CoE 

DOD O&M ............................................................................................................ $0.00M $1.86M 

Traumatic Injuries/Amputations 

DOD O&M ............................................................................................................ $0.00M $0.00M 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Colonel Jaffee. 

24 

Colonel, one Marine who returned from Afghanistan in December 

2009 was in a lightly armored vehicle that struck an IED. The incident was fatal for other occupants of the vehicle and amputated the 

legs of the turret gunner. The Marine in question was knocked unconscious. 

After seeking treatment from his corpsmen, having the incident 

documented in his medical record, and making the proper indication on his PDHA, he has since received no follow-up care. He has 

not been contacted by anyone about his PDHA. He has even sought 

care from several different military medical sites and has been 

turned away. 

Can you comment on what the Department is doing to ensure 

servicemembers actually receive the treatment that is outlined in 

the policy? 

Colonel JAFFEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are a couple 

of ways that we are trying to increase the penetration and ensure 

that people get the appropriate treatments, one of which is we are 

in the process of transitioning our system for evaluations from a 

subjective, voluntary approach where a servicemember would have 

to raise their hand and say that they have a problem and access 

care, to one in-theater, which is more of a mandatory—if you have 

been involved in an incident that is associated with a blast, even 

if you are being stoic and denying that you have symptoms, you 

would still receive a mandatory evaluation. And the current protocol for that also includes that that gets appropriately documented 

in-theater, which can help facilitate further follow-up. And your 

particular case mentioned assuring more robust care and follow-up 

in the post-deployment aspects throughout all of the facilities. 

One of the things that is very important to the Department of 

Defense is providing the appropriate education and resources to all 

of our primary care providers in the military health care system on 

the systems and resources and guidelines that are in place to care 

for this very important population. To that end, we have been investing a lot of resources in providing appropriate education to all 

members of our military health care system. This includes having 

instituted for the past 3 years annual training events, which have 

trained more than 800 DOD and VA providers to make them aware 

of these newer developments and guidelines. 

We have put in a system, a network of education coordinators 

throughout the country. We have 14 of these people throughout the 

country whose job is outreach to make sure that they are providing 

appropriate education and resources to our primary care providers 

at all of our military facilities. We recently are very pleased by the 

collaboration that we have with our line commanders. 

So the medical community does not feel like we are doing this 

alone in the military, we have the unmitigated support of our line 

commanders who want to help us get the appropriate education out 

to all of our servicemembers. Part of that education campaign includes not just education to the patients, not just the providers and 

the family members, but actually involves the commanders and the 

line, so that if they are aware that one of the servicemen or servicewomen under their command is not getting the appropriate services, they will have an awareness of the types of resources availVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
25 

able and can also assure that they will get the appropriate referrals and treatments. 

The other aspect that we have is that immediate screening, that 

post-deployment health assessment. And we are aware that some 

people may not have problems that develop until several months 

after they return home. To address that challenge, we have implemented the post-deployment health reassessment, which occurs 90 

to 100 days after they return home. We have found that that system can sometimes identify individuals with problems that were 

not identified initially, which also helps expedite getting them 

transitioned to the appropriate care network. 

Chairman AKAKA. In this particular case where this person has 

claimed that he has been turned away, what alternative does this 

person have? 

Colonel JAFFEE. There is a number—we have a network of those 

regional care coordinators who can certainly reach out and help facilitate—assuring that that individual can get to a facility that can 

provide the appropriate resources, be it a Federal facility or a local 

facility within the TRICARE network. That is the purpose of that 

program, to try and reach out to individuals like that, because the 

goal is to keep anyone from falling through the cracks. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. 

Dr. Beck, as you know, Congress recently passed legislation I introduced that would create a comprehensive program of caregiver 

support services. If you could make any changes you wanted, how 

would you implement this program for veterans with TBI? 

Ms. BECK. Thank you. We at the VA are very pleased that Congress has recognized the significant sacrifices that are made by 

caregivers and that there is support and legislation for the expansion of benefits and services to meet their needs. 

The additional benefits outlined in the legislation will be of great 

value to families and to veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury who 

require a primary caregiver in the home. VA looks forward to working with Congress and other key stakeholders on the implementation of the plan. We think the legislation is comprehensive and will 

address the needs that our caregivers have. 

Chairman AKAKA. Dr. Beck, the Secretary’s March 23, 2010, report to the Committee says that, and I quote, ‘‘Collaborations with 

private sector facilities are regularly used to successfully meet the 

individualized needs of veterans and complement VA care.’’ 

Can you cite examples of private facilities providing care for veterans with the most severe TBIs? 

Ms. BECK. Yes, sir. I would think first of hospitals like Kessler 

Hospital in New Jersey, Casa Colina in California, the Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, Spaulding Hospital in Boston, Marianjoy 

in Wheaton, the National Rehabilitation Hospital here in the District of Columbia. I am aware of active-duty servicemembers who 

have been treated or where we have shared treatment with those 

facilities. 

I would also like to point out that at the military treatment facilities, our servicemembers have a choice. They may choose the 

private sector at the military treatment facility. That is their 

choice. Some of them do use the private sector, but many of them 

choose to transfer to Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers. And since 

26 

the beginning of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, our polytrauma 

centers have been available to take patients. We have not denied 

admission, and we have had rehabilitation services available to the 

servicemembers and their families. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

Senator Burr, your questions. 

Senator BURR. Colonel, I heard you mention that every servicemember who might be exposed to a blast has a mandatory evaluation. Let me just ask you, is Severe Traumatic Brain Injury pretty 

identifiable? 

Colonel JAFFEE. Yes. 

Senator BURR. What we are really concerned with is people on 

the margins. Even with a mandatory evaluation, how in the world 

are we going to catch it if we do not have a baseline to compare? 

I think you are talking about a quiz that we send servicemembers 

through, and yet we know that this is a problem that is going to 

affect a lot of people. Why aren’t we taking a baseline on these 

folks before they are deployed so we have got some comparison? 

Colonel JAFFEE. Well, sir, I am happy to report that actually the 

DOD does have a program to do cognitive baselining. To date, since 

that program was implemented, we have baselined more than 

500,000 servicemembers prior to their deployment. The purpose of 

that program is that we can better inform and make the safest determination for when it is safe to return them to duty in theater 

following an injury so that we can access that baseline information 

and compare it to their post-injury evaluation when we think we 

are preparing to send them back into the fight. 

Senator BURR. So how does that baseline follow that servicemember from medical facility to medical facility or in-theater? 

Colonel JAFFEE. Well, the baseline is meant to help inform those 

decisions in-theater, so currently it is in a system which the in-theater providers reach back to a help desk to access, and we are in 

the process of enterprising the execution of a system through our 

Defense Health Information Management System to tie those results directly into the theater computer systems where the providers there can directly access it from their computer. 

Senator BURR. And do you know how many people in-theater 

know that that exists? 

Colonel JAFFEE. I know that there has been a steady increase in 

utilization of that help desk since it was implemented. 

Senator BURR. OK. Dr. Beck, Dr. Gans with the Kessler Institute 

appeared 3 years ago, and 3 years ago he sort of brought to the 

Committee’s attention that we were doing little to reach outside. 

Now, you quoted all these places that we go, but let me quote from 

Dr. Gans’ testimony today. ‘‘It appears that little has changed since 

2007 regarding the use of local care providers for TBI care.’’ Would 

you like to comment on that? 

Ms. BECK. Yes, sir. Thank you. As I noted in my testimony, during fiscal year 2009 the VA treated 3,700 veterans in the private 

sector and spent over $21 million. There were 1,500, approximately, either facilities or individuals who provided that care to the 

Nation’s veterans. 

Senator BURR. What is the VA’s criteria for determining whether 

you use a local provider? 

27 

Ms. BECK. The criteria are that the care is either—number 1, 

that we cannot provide the care at the VA; we do not have the 

services available at the VA. 

Senator BURR. But define that for me. If the nearest VA facility 

is 90 miles away and they provide the care, is that their point of 

delivery? 

Ms. BECK. What we do in those cases is, we have a geographically accessible statement, and that is a medical decision that is 

made by our physicians who manage the care, and that is related 

to distance from the facility, condition, and the specialty care 

needs. So the geographic accessibility decision is implemented 

based on those three conditions under the direction of a physician. 

Senator BURR. What is the DOD criteria, Colonel? 

Colonel JAFFEE. Basically it is up to the—if a certain resource or 

specialty is available at the military treatment facility, then that 

is where the servicemember would receive their treatment. If a 

particular specialty or need is not available, then we would go to 

the TRICARE network looking at the number of facilities and 

providers. 

Senator BURR. Do you also have a geographical area for the DOD 

facility? 

Colonel JAFFEE. This is done more local and regional by the facility, so it is at the facility itself, if you have the resources; if not, 

then you try and utilize the expertise as close to the area as possible. That is why we have local TRICARE networks, and each 

MTF sort of keeps track of those local providers by specialty who 

are involved in the TRICARE network. 

Senator BURR. Dr. Beck, in late 2007, we passed the Wounded 

Warrior Act, and in that legislation we created a pilot program that 

provided residential living options. 

Now, in your testimony, you say that we currently have ‘‘four 

veterans with moderate to severe TBI that have been placed in private facilities that specialize in providing rehabilitation services for 

TBI (residing in Virginia, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Texas.) Up to 

26 veterans are projected to be enrolled in the program in 2010 and 

14 more in 2011.’’ 

Let me just ask you, why are so few being served under this 

pilot? 

Ms. BECK. We have the capacity to serve more under the model. 

So far—— 

Senator BURR. Let me just point out, this is 2010. We passed this 

in 2007. To date, we have four veterans—and I appreciate your 

projections of 26 in 2010 and 14 in 2011. But based upon the 3- 

year ramp-up to get four in, I am somewhat skeptical about the 

ability to meet those. What has been the problem? 

Ms. BECK. We have done extensive outreach, and many of our 

veterans prefer to get their care in their homes with their families. 

Second, I also referred in my testimony to our Transitional Rehabilitation Centers. We have those at our four regional centers, and 

we frequently use those centers for community reintegration, which 

is a type of care, community-based reintegration, that we would 

use before we would go to assisted living. 

28 

We are doing extensive outreach to make this program known, 

and we have identified 267 private sector facilities who can provide 

assisted living for TBI, and we are—— 

Senator BURR. Have you identified how many servicemembers 

this might be appropriate for? 

Ms. BECK. We have reached out to our veterans through our 

OEF/OIF case management programs. We initially identified—they 

reported to us a possible universe of 168 veterans who were interested and might at some point consider assisted living. 

What we are finding is that this is going to be an option we 

think further out in the recovery period as we look at the stressors 

that may occur for patients, for our veterans and families when 

they are at home or in the community. 

Senator BURR. Thank you. My time has expired, and I thank the 

Chairman for his indulgence. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Burr. 

Senator Murray? 

STATEMENT OF HON. PATTY MURRAY, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator Burr, for holding this really important hearing. Clearly, we all 

know that we have to get this approach to treating patients with 

TBI right. I continue to be concerned as we have a number of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and we know that IED 

explosives continue to be a problem on the ground. At the same 

time, the VA is having trouble still hiring enough mental and 

health care professionals to meet the needs that we have not only 

today but for tomorrow. 

So, I am concerned about our long-term plan and making sure 

we continue to do what we need to do from our end to ensure we 

have the resources to meet it. I am very concerned that the VA is 

underestimating the number of patients who are going to seek VA 

health care as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like 

I said, clearly the VA has to be able to hire enough professionals, 

including mental health care professionals, if it is to maintain the 

quality of care that we expect. 

I wanted to ask today if the DOD and VA casualty prediction 

models are accurate, in your opinion. Dr. Beck or Colonel Jaffee, 

either one. 

Ms. BECK. I would like to take that for the record. I cannot comment on that at this time. 

Dr. Guice is our Federal recovery coordinator and works with our 

severely injured. I—— 

Senator MURRAY. So we do not know if they are accurate? 

Ms. BECK. I cannot comment on it at this time. Colonel Jaffee? 

Colonel JAFFEE. What we are most confident in is the number of 

servicemembers who, after having received a screen, got a clinical 

evaluation and got diagnosed as having had symptoms thought to 

be due to a Traumatic Brain Injury. So they get the appropriate 

clinical evaluation and use an ICD code. There is a very positive 

initiative over the past 2 years between the VA, DOD, and the Centers for Disease Control to come to a consensus and a revision of 

the ICD–9 codes that are being used by clinicians to evaluate these 

29 

patients. So we have a—I think we are confident in clarifying the 

number of patients who get diagnosed and coded. 

One of the things that I alluded to in my earlier statement is we 

are also trying to very much encourage our servicemembers who 

may be suffering but not coming forward who we may not know 

about. That is why we are transitioning from the system where it 

is a voluntary symptom-based approach, requiring them to raise 

their hand, to this mandatory evaluation which we hope and believe will capture more individuals who may be having symptoms 

and suffering yet may not be raising their hand. This will allow us 

to get a more accurate prediction and planning for these servicemembers. 

Senator MURRAY. OK. Well, I would like you then to answer for 

the record because we need to look long term for our budget. And 

we know that it is not just care the day they get home or even 3 

months later, but far into the future. The kinds of facilities or 

treatment that we will need 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now are important, so I would like to have you respond to that. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. PATTY MURRAY TO

LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DE- PARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response: There is no modeling activity by VA regarding this issue. Casualty Projection modeling is a DOD issue. 

Senator MURRAY. Let me turn to another question then. In 2008, 

the GAO raised concerns about the screening tool that was used by 

the VA to assess TBI. Now, I understand that the VA is currently 

examining its TBI screening tools because of that, and I am interested to know where that research stands right now because it is 

unacceptable for veterans with TBI, whether it is blatant or unreported, to go undiagnosed because of lack of training of someone or 

medical equipment at the VA. 

So can someone describe to me where we are with the screening 

tool assessment? 

Ms. BECK. Yes, Senator Murray, we have three research projects 

now which are evaluating the screening tool and assessing its reliability and validity. We expect the first of those studies to be completed in fiscal year 2011. 

Senator MURRAY. Sometime next year. 

Ms. BECK. Sometime next year. And I would like to provide for 

the record the details as to the status of the other studies. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. PATTY MURRAY TO

LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response. Currently, VA has three studies that are evaluating the TBI Screening 

and Evaluation Tool (below). Two are underway, and a third study is beginning. Results from these are expected beginning in 2011. 

1. SDR 08–377: Evaluation of VA’s TBI Clinical Reminder and Secondary Level 

Evaluation 

Judi L Babcock-Parziale PhD 

Southern Arizona VA Health Care System, Tucson, AZ 

Funding Period: May 2009–April 2011 

30 

http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=2141699528 

Current Status: Active; recruiting subjects. 

Background: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a leading injury among military personnel serving in the Operation Enduring Freedom/ Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/ 

OIF) combat theaters due largely to improvised explosive devices. While TBI 

severities range from mild to severe, mTBI is particularly difficult to identify, diagnose and treat. The VA modified a version of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury 

Center (DVBIC) tool, which is used to screen returning OEF/OIF servicemembers. 

The VA’s modified screen, the TBI Clinical Reminder, is used to screen a slightly 

different population. Therefore, results of the validity study for the DVBIC tool are 

not directly applicable. As a result, the General Accounting Office (GAO) recommended the VA expeditiously evaluate the clinical validity and reliability of its 

TBI screening tool. The VA’s Second Level Evaluation will also be evaluated to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic criteria. 

Objective(s): 

(1) Develop expert-derived mTBI Diagnostic Standards (i.e., proxy gold standards). 

(2) Evaluate and compare the performance characteristics of the TBI Clinical Reminder and the Second Level Evaluation using the expert-derived Diagnostic Standards. 

These objectives will be realized via: (a) An examination the performance characteristics (diagnostic validity) of the TBI Clinical Reminder and the Second Level 

Evaluation relative to the expert-derived Diagnostic Standards to determine sensitivity and specificity, (b) Determining whether false positives and/or false negatives 

are related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how the performance 

characteristics of the tests differ for PTSD, (c) Ascertaining the concordance among 

measures of functional impairment, the TBI Clinical Reminder and the Second 

Level Evaluation, (d) Establishing the concurrent validity between the diagnosis of 

presence or absence of post-concussion syndrome due to mTBI and measures of functional impairment, (e) Verifying the test/retest reliability for the TBI Clinical Reminder and the Second Level Evaluation and (f) Identifying whether clusters of 

symptoms or subjects reporting similar patterns of symptoms correspond with any 

of the eight clinical sub-groups (e.g., mTBI with PTSD, PTSD alone). 

Methodology: 

The project includes a mixed methods approach with a total sample of 720 OEF/ 

OIF veterans recruited over 12-months at three VA Polytrauma Network Sites. The 

subjects will have either symptoms consistent with post-concussion syndrome thereby due to mTBI (True Positive) or symptoms not consistent with post-concussion 

syndrome thereby not due to mTBI (True Negative). All subjects will be assessed 

by research clinicians using the TBI Clinical Reminder and the Second Level Evaluation, the Diagnostic Standards, and two measures of functional impairment to determine a true diagnosis of mTBI and/or PTSD. 

Diagnostic Standards will be derived from experts using an online Delphi process 

and will be used to compute sensitivity and specificity for the TBI Clinical Reminder 

and the Secondary Level Evaluation. Test re-test reliability of the TBI Clinical Reminder and cluster analyses of the Secondary Level Evaluation will be conducted. 

Cluster analyses will be conducted to further our understanding of how the clinical 

presentation of patients with mTBI might be classified. 

Results: 

There are no findings, as the project began May 2009. 

Impact: 

Anticipated Impact: Determining the clinical validity of the VA’s TBI Clinical Reminder and Second Level Evaluation is critical because valid screening and evaluation of mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) leads to accurate diagnosis and timely 

treatment. Accurate screening improves clinical efficiency and ensures that resources are provided to those who need them most. The project findings are expected to advance the science of screening and diagnosis by clarifying whether 

symptoms are consistent with post-concussion syndrome thereby due to mTBI. The 

anticipated findings will also improve the field’s ability to measure mTBI outcomes. 

2. C7055-I: Objective Diagnosis of Mild Blast-Induced TBI 

Joseph F. Rizzo 

Funding Period: 1/1/2010–12/31/2012 

Objective(s): This proposal presents a novel plan to develop a diagnostic tool to diagnose TBI. 

Research: This proposal seeks to develop a new tool to diagnose mild TBI. 

Methodology: We propose to modify existing laboratory-based methods to record 

eye movements to create a new portable device with similar capabilities. This new 

31 

test will be developed and validated in the first year of this proposal. Thereafter, 

this test will be administered to a small number of veterans with blast-induced 

Traumatic Brain Injury to judge the feasibility of giving this test to blast victims. 

The blast-victims will be selected by Neurocognitive scientists at the Boston VA. 

Current Status: Active; anticipate data collection beginning August 2010, and preliminary data before the end of fiscal year 2011. 

3. SDR 08–411: TBI Screening Instruments and Processes for Clinical Follow-Up 

Rodney D. Vanderploeg Ph.D. 

James A. Haley Veterans Hospital, Tampa, FL 

Funding Period: October 2009–September 2011 

Objective(s): The goal is to evaluate the reliability and validity of the existing 

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Clinical Reminder Screen for OEF/OIF Veterans. 

There are four objectives: 

1. Operationalize a gold standard semi-structured interview for TBI identification 

using a national panel of experts. 

2. Identify VHA system factors and patient characteristics predicting delay in or 

failure to complete the TBI Clinical Reminder screen (e.g., patient characteristics 

and VA System levels of Polytrauma care). 

3. Using the gold standard semi-structured interview, evaluate the validity (sensitivity and specificity) and reliability of the current TBI Clinical Reminder Screen. 

4. Identify approaches to improve the TBI Clinical Reminder screening protocol, 

including modifications of the screening instrument and process. 

Research Design: This is both a retrospective analysis of existing VA patient care 

data (TBI Clinical Reminder and TBI Comprehensive Evaluation) and a prospective 

study completing ‘‘gold standard’’ interviews of both positive and negative TBI 

Screens. 

Methodology: 

1. Using a panel of national experts develop a ‘‘gold standard’’ semi-structured 

interview to identify and confirm TBI history. 

2. Statistically analyze the TBI Clinical Reminder database from Patient Care 

Services to identify provider, patient, and system characteristics associated with 

delays in or failure to successfully complete the TBI screening process. 

3. Use the ‘‘gold standard’’ semi-structured interview to complete a prospective 

study on a sample of veterans at 8 VA sites (2 PRC, 3 PNS, 3 PSCT) to assess the 

psychometric characteristics of the TBI screen (reliability, sensitivity, and specificity). 

4. Improve the current TBI Clinical reminder through examination of each of the 

questions and response options within the TBI screen to determine which are most 

related to gold standard identification versus false positive responses. 

Current Status: Local Tampa IRB approval, National data requested (not yet received), Expert panel meeting convened, Working on finalizing the ‘‘gold standard’’ 

semi-structured interview, Recruiting local PIs for the other 7 VA sites to assist 

with local IRB approval and subject recruitment. 

Senator MURRAY. Are we doing anything in the interim to address the concerns about the screening tool that is currently being 

used? Or are we just waiting for a study? 

Ms. BECK. No, Senator Murray, what we are doing is we are recognizing that the screen is a screen, that it probably overrefers, 

and we are conducting a full and complete evaluation of everyone 

who screens positive, and providing care and treatment for the 

symptoms and the disorders that we evaluate during the assessment. 

Senator MURRAY. I am out of time, but I do have additional questions, so I will wait until the next round. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Murray. 

Senator Isakson? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

32 

Dr. Guice, Laurie Ott at Uptown VA—you are probably already 

ready for this; I can tell by that smile—sings the praises of your 

Recovery Coordinator Program and says that it is most particularly 

beneficial for those that suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury. I understand there are three recovery coordinators at the Uptown VA 

in Augusta, but I understand there are less than 30 nationwide. 

What are your plans to expand that program? 

Dr. GUICE. Thank you, sir. Laurie is a great supporter of the program, and we appreciate her interest and time in helping us do 

what we need to do. 

We currently have three FRCs at Eisenhower Army Medical Center. We currently have 20 nationwide and are in the process of hiring an additional 5. What we do is we constantly project based on 

the number of referrals we are getting to the program and the 

number of individuals who enroll in the program as to the need. 

So we sort of do a just-in-time staffing. Of course, just-in-time does 

not mean we can hire them tomorrow. It means we have to have 

a little bit of lead time. So, I am constantly doing projections to see 

when those points of hiring need to happen, and we are currently 

in the process of hiring five additional FRCs. 

Senator ISAKSON. When did you originally implement the 

program? 

Dr. GUICE. The program was implemented in—it first started 

taking clients, which is the best time point, in February 2008. 

Senator ISAKSON. And they coordinate the transition from DOD 

to VA Health Care, too, do they not? Aren’t they more like a caseworker that follows in that transition? 

Dr. GUICE. It is a very unique program in that we coordinate the 

care and benefits that these individuals need across the transition. 

So if you think about any time we have some individual moving 

from hospital to hospital or hospital to another facility and finally 

moving from active duty to veteran status, those are all transitions. 

Sometimes we have difficulty managing transitions. 

What the FRCs do is once they have a client assigned to them, 

they stay with that client throughout all of the transitions, which 

is relatively unique given the way we have our system structured 

where most case managers are facility based. So they really do stay 

with that individual and with that family and really try to mitigate 

any problems almost before they happen, and coordinate the benefits and care that they need using all the case managers and all 

the providers that we have. 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, I apologize for missing Dr. Beck’s testimony, but I note that she is the chief consultant to the VA. So I 

would just say this: In my experience with veterans returning from 

Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly those with Traumatic Brain Injury, the single biggest problem we had, which is now lessening, 

was they fell between the cracks between DOD and VA. These recovery coordinators are a bridge in that transition, which for TBI, 

probably more than any other injury, is tremendously important. 

They are doing wonderful work down there—I am prejudiced because I am a hometown guy—at Augusta VA. They have returned 

some soldiers who have come home from Iraq or Afghanistan with 

TBI, have rehabilitated them, and some have actually volunteered 

33 

to go back, which is an amazing testimony to what Eisenhower has 

done and what the Uptown VA has done. 

Thank you very much, Dr. Guice. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Isakson. 

Senator Tester? 

Senator TESTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a couple different ways to go here. I think I am going to 

put forward a couple of examples, and then I have got a question 

for you, Dr. Beck, in relation to these. 

One, there is a New York Times article that described a scenario 

of a wife of a soldier who happened to be recovering from TBI at 

Fort Carson’s warrior transition unit. She was reprimanded when 

she sought additional therapy for her husband, told by an NCO 

that he does not deserve his uniform, he should give it to her. 

Two, about 3 years ago, I visited with a young lieutenant from 

Shelby, MT, who was at Walter Reed dealing with a very serious 

leg injury. He and his wife were very frank with me. They told me 

they had an impossible time handling the bureaucracy, getting appointments scheduled, and trying to get through the discharge 

process. 

I recall thinking at that point in time you have got a bright, 

young officer whose wife is in law school. These folks are having 

a tough time getting through the process. How does anybody ever 

get anything done here if they do not have an advocate? 

The question I have is: Have things improved in the last 3 years? 

How have they improved in the last 3 years? And do you see this 

as a problem? I am talking about making sure the needs of the soldier are met without having to have a mother, a father, a wife, a 

sibling quit their job to advocate for them? 

Ms. BECK. Thank you, Senator Tester. We have placed VA military liaisons, social workers, at the military treatment facilities. 

We currently have 33 of those VA military liaisons at 18 of our 

military treatment facilities. We are in discussions with the Army 

currently to expand those numbers. 

We have found that the liaison capability of VA social workers 

working with the military care coordinators and social workers has 

improved the transition. 

Senator TESTER. OK. And just so I get your numbers right, you 

have got 33 transition workers at 18 facilities? 

Ms. BECK. That is correct, sir, social work liaisons. 

Senator TESTER. So a little less than two per facility, is that fair 

to say? 

Ms. BECK. They are distributed—— 

Senator TESTER. OK, based on numbers? And what is that ratio? 

What are those numbers? I mean, how many soldiers does it take 

to say we need another one? 

Ms. BECK. Well, I think we do it based on size and scope of medical services at the military treatment facilities, and we work collaboratively with the commanders at those facilities to determine—— 

Senator TESTER. OK. So give me—what I am looking for is an 

idea of how many people these folks could be responsible for, helping them through the maze. And I do not mean that in a bad way, 

but it kind of represents it. Are we talking one worker per five solVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
34 

diers, 10 soldiers, 20 soldiers, 100 soldiers? And you can answer, 

Colonel, if you would like. However you want to do it. I am just 

trying to get an idea if we are even close to meeting the demand 

that is out there. Are we? I mean, I think they are probably effective. I mean, I do not doubt that a bit. 

Ms. BECK. They are—Senator—— 

Senator TESTER. But if we are understaffed, that is another issue 

that this Committee probably will want to address. 

Ms. BECK. The positions and the roles are effective. We recognize 

that we can always do more, and that is the reason that we are 

continually working with the military service and the commanders 

to identify opportunities. 

For example, because so many of the seriously injured and the 

wounded are returning to Walter Reed and Bethesda, we have a 

higher number of social workers there than we do—— 

Senator TESTER. That makes sense. Could you get back to us 

with some numbers so we can get some sort of scope? 

Ms. BECK. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. And I am sure it is going to vary from soup to 

nuts, but if you could give us the number of social workers at each 

of those 18 facilities and how many soldiers—that is really the key. 

Ms. BECK. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. How many soldiers they are working with—— 

Ms. BECK. Yes, sir. 

Senator TESTER. That would be great. 

Ms. BECK. We have those numbers, and we have the number of 

referrals, and I would—— 

Senator TESTER. That would be great. 

Ms. BECK [continuing]. Provide it for the record. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you very much. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. JON TESTER TO LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has a robust system in place 

to transition severely ill and injured Servicemembers from the Department of Defense (DOD) to VA’s system of care, as well as transitions to their home or the most 

appropriate facility capable of providing the specialized services their medical condition requires. The VA Liaisons for Health Care represent a key component for this 

process. The VA Liaisons for Health Care, either social workers or nurses, are 

placed strategically in Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) with concentrations of 

recovering Servicemembers returning from Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). This program has grown in size from a single Liaison supporting both Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval 

Medical Center at Bethesda to now supporting 33 VA Liaisons for Health Care at 

18 MTFs. 

VA Liaisons are co-located with DOD Case Managers at MTFs where possible and 

provide onsite consultation and collaboration regarding VA resources and treatment 

options. The Liaisons work closely with the military case managers who are providing case management for these Servicemembers, as well as the receiving VA case 

managers who will be providing ongoing case management through the transition 

and once they arrive at the VA medical center. VA Liaisons educate Servicemembers 

and their families about the VA system of care, coordinate the Servicemember’s initial registration with VA, and secure outpatient appointments or inpatient transfer 

to a VA health care facility as appropriate. VA Liaisons make early connections with 

Servicemembers and families to begin building a positive relationship with VA. VA 

Liaisons coordinated 4,567 referrals for health care and provided over 24,000 professional consultations in fiscal year 2009. In the first two quarters of fiscal year 2010, 

35 

VA Liaisons have coordinated 3,201 referrals for health care and provided over 

14,191 professional consultations. 

Locations Number of VA 

Liaisons 

• Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC ...................................................................................... 5 

• National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland ..................................................................................... 1 

• Brooke Army Medical Center, Ft. Sam Houston, Texas ................................................................................... 4 

• Eisenhower Army Medical Center, Ft. Gordon, Georgia .................................................................................. 2 

• Madigan Army Medical Center, Ft. Lewis, Washington .................................................................................. 3 

• Darnall Army Medical Center, Ft. Hood, Texas ............................................................................................... 2 

• Evans Army Community Hospital, Ft. Carson, Colorado ................................................................................. 2 

• Womack Army Medical Center, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina ............................................................................. 2 

• Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, Camp Pendleton, California ...................................................................... 2 

• Naval Medical Center San Diego, California (Balboa) ................................................................................... 2 

• Martin Army Community Hospital, Fort Benning, Georgia .............................................................................. 1 

• Winn Army Community Hospital, Fort Stewart, Georgia ................................................................................. 1 

• William Beaumont Army Medical Center, Fort Bliss, Texas ........................................................................... 1 

• Irwin Army Community Hospital, Fort Riley, Kansas ...................................................................................... 1 

• Medical Activity, Fort Drum, New York ........................................................................................................... 1 

• McDonald Army Health Center, Fort Eustis, Virginia ...................................................................................... 1 

• Ireland Army Medical Center, Fort Knox, Tennessee ....................................................................................... 1 

• Blanchfield Army Community Hospital, Fort Campbell, Kentucky .................................................................. 1

Senator TESTER. With the exception of my friend Senator Begich 

here to my left, we have got the highest per capita percentage of 

veterans in the United States. Alaska beats us out. But we have 

got a bunch. The polytrauma network rehabilitation within—I 

mean, our nearest center—let me get right to it—is in Seattle or 

Denver. Senator Baucus and I introduced legislation that would 

task the VA with a study to establish a new polytrauma center in 

the area that Montana is in. I think it is a good idea. My question 

is: Would you commit to doing that study? 

Ms. BECK. We are aware of the introduction of that legislation 

to do that study, and we are preparing views and costs. The Department is preparing views now. 

Senator TESTER. It would be good. I mean, I think the issue is— 

and I am going to give up the microphone here because I am out 

of time. But I think the issue is when you are dealing with—and 

I know you talked about distance, condition, and specialty care— 

but when you are dealing with a 12-hour drive—and, actually, that 

is not the longest. That is from where I live to a place like Seattle 

or Denver. I live in the center part of the State of Montana. It becomes a real issue even if it is a minor injury to make that kind 

of travel. 

So thank you very much. I appreciate the panel for being here. 

Thank you very much. A panel of five docs. That is pretty impressive. Thanks. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Senator Begich? 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK BEGICH, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

If I can just tag on to one of the questions that Senator Tester 

had, Dr. Beck, you have—and I will use my phrases—33 social 

workers that are distributed around. When you decided to impleVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
36 

ment that program, I am assuming you did some analysis of the 

need and, therefore, you had to have some understanding of how 

many you would need to do the job which you estimated before you 

started that program. Am I assuming that right? 

Ms. BECK. Yes, sir. 

Senator BEGICH. So there is nothing wrong with saying we do not 

have enough, and I want you to kind of be okay with that. 

Ms. BECK. Yes. 

Senator BEGICH. If we need more, we need to know that. So I 

know you had to do an analysis. A program—anything with the VA 

or the military does not get implemented unless there is a huge 

analysis behind it. So my assumption is you did an analysis based 

on what you saw the growth would be in this area with the folks 

coming back, as well as people who are here that needed services 

of social workers from the VA connected with the DOD. So in doing 

that, you must have had some ratio, some analysis of where you 

needed to be to be at optimum delivery level. 

Can you share that with us at some point? I know you do not 

have it now. That will tell me what your thinking was rather than 

what you think you need right now, because that was the basis for 

moving forward on this, which I think is a great idea to have those 

social workers there. My staff to this Committee is a social worker, 

so she is probably very excited about it. I cannot see her facial expression. 

Ms. BECK. She is. 

Senator BEGICH [continuing]. But I am sure she is. 

Ms. BECK. She is, sir. 

Senator BEGICH. So that analysis to me is a document that 

makes a difference. 

Ms. BECK. Absolutely. 

Senator BEGICH. So I can only assume you have that, so I will 

leave it at that. I do not want to speak for Senator Tester, but I 

think we want to help you in this area because we think the social 

workers are an important component. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. MARK BEGICH TO

LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response. The VA Liaison Program was established in October 2003. VA recognized the need to establish a seamless transition process to ensure all Servicemembers transitioning from DOD to VA receive world-class service and transition assistance. The first VA Liaison served at both Walter Reed Army Medical Center and 

National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda to transition severely ill and injured 

Servicemembers transitioning from MTFs to VA. Since that time, the program has 

continued to grow, and VA has placed additional VA Liaisons at MTFs with concentrations of recovering Servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

DOD requests assistance for VA Liaisons and recommends locations based on the 

following criteria. 

• Numbers of wounded, ill and injured Servicemembers at a given MTF 

• Severity of conditions at a given MTF 

• Likelihood that wounded, ill and injured will need to access VA health care 

• Number of population that will return to duty 

Senator BEGICH. Along with that, in the health care piece of legislation we passed, there was a provision there called the Alaska 

Federal Interagency Task Force to look at improved services 

37 

throughout Alaska on health care. It actually started with us looking at VA, as well as certain services to our active military, but 

now it is a little broader. 

One, are you aware of it? If not, we want to make sure you are 

engaged in this, because the idea is to look at the delivery of services in a very rural State. As Senator Tester said, we both have a 

very high percentage per capita of veterans that are not necessarily 

in urban areas, and we need to look at how we integrate TBI services in remote areas. 

So, one, are you aware of that? If not, we will get you information on it. We want to engage you to make sure we are not disconnected from this. I do not know if anyone can answer that, but I 

will just start with you. 

Ms. BECK. We are aware of that initiative related to providing 

services in Alaska, and we will make sure that our rehab services 

group, our Federal Recovery Coordinator Program, and our Social 

Work Case Management Program is engaged in that initiative. 

Senator BEGICH. Fantastic. 

The other is, again, in rural areas, telemedicine is—you know, a 

lot of pioneering has been done in Alaska. I know the VA has done 

some especially around physical therapy and speech therapy. 

Ms. BECK. Yes. 

Senator BEGICH. How do you see TBI, if at all, used in telemedicine? And are you using it now? And what is your kind of analysis 

of that? Whoever wants to answer that. 

Ms. BECK. I will start and others can add. We are very committed to and looking carefully at the technologies in telehealth 

and how they can help us. Currently, we have two projects under 

way with Traumatic Brain Injury. 

One was referred to earlier, and that is the screening, conducting 

our screening and our evaluations. Denver actually pioneered that 

TBI screening and evaluation tool, and we have three other sites 

that are currently using it. We are evaluating the accuracy, the 

consistency, and the effectiveness of using that tool. 

The second initiative that we are evaluating is a case management tool, and it allows us to use what we call a telebuddy system, 

which looks a lot like a personal assistant or a telephone or an 

iPhone, and we are establishing capability to dialog. So every 

morning the patient can say good morning, work with the case 

manager: ‘‘Have you done this today? Have you done that today?’’ 

And then the dialog exists so that we can call the case manager. 

There has been some very good work done in Seattle in the rural 

environments, which may have involved Alaska as well, by a rehab 

group there that has shown that it is an effective mechanism. Actually Dr. Bell, Kathy Bell, who is the chief of physical medicine and 

rehab at the University of Washington, was a consultant and 

worked with us on the development of the dialog. 

Senator BEGICH. Very good. 

Ms. BECK. So we are working to implement that this year and 

see that as a way to do good remote case management in telehealth. 

Senator BEGICH. Very good. Thank you for that. 

I will just end on this last question. Should the mental health 

professionals—you know, lots of times it is the VA kind of going 

38 

this way with DOD, but DOD has a lot of additional mental health 

professionals working on the ground in the field all the way 

through the process. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, we hear a lot about it. 

Is there enough of activity from the DOD mental health professional who is following, say, an individual soldier who is starting 

to show signs of issues that that carries forward into the VA? In 

other words, that DOD mental health professional starts their service and then VA picks it up on it next? Is there enough transition, 

and do they do enough coming in your direction? VA does a lot 

going this direction. I know that. You have a much smaller budget. 

DOD has a huge budget. But do they do enough coming this way? 

And if you do not want to counter that—I do not want you to have 

DOD calling you in a few minutes and saying, ‘‘Why did you say 

that?’’ But I want you to, if you could, just quickly respond, and 

then my time is up. 

Ms. BECK. I have Dr. Batten at the table with us today, and she 

is VA’s representative and is the Deputy Director of the Defense 

Center of Excellence. We have had an ongoing project and integrated work through the Defense Center of Excellence, and Dr. 

Batten, I think, can comment on that. 

Ms. BATTEN. Thank you, sir. It is a great question and one that 

both Departments have identified as an important area of emphasis. In fact, a new program was implemented about 6 months ago, 

maybe closer to 9 months ago, called the In Transition Program 

that is focused on exactly the need you are identifying, where 

coaches are assigned to individuals who are in mental health treatment and are transitioning from one care setting to another. That 

actually works both for individuals who may be transferring from 

one MTF to another as well as from an MTF to a VA, to make sure 

that that transition is kept up. So it is a great point, and it is one 

that we are addressing. 

Senator BEGICH. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Begich. 

Let me ask two fast questions here of Dr. Beck and Dr. Jaffee. 

We have talked about screening and about coordination, but proper 

diagnosis is one of the major challenges in treating TBI. The question is: What state-of-the-art imaging techniques, if any, are being 

used and how? Dr. Beck? 

Ms. BECK. Next to me is Colonel Jaffee who has a great amount 

of expertise in this area. I am going to ask him to respond. 

Chairman AKAKA. Colonel Jaffee. 

Colonel JAFFEE. In our research, Investment Resources has been 

very committed to exploring the latest advances in neurodiagnostics to include neuroimaging and other forms of biomarkers. To 

summarize a couple of the neuroimaging initiatives, we have done 

a lot of work with the technology known as diffusion tensor imaging. It allows us to look at some of the subcortical white matter 

tracks in the brain. We actually were able to complete the first 

study comparing the patterns on DTI in patients who had blasts 

as a component of their injury compared to more traditional forms 

of injury. This research was actually recognized by the American 

Academy of Neurology as one of the six most important late-breakVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
39 

ing research findings of the year and was featured at their annual 

meeting last year. 

We have had DVBIC researchers coordinate with those at the 

University of California at San Diego evaluating the use of MEG, 

magnetoencephalography, an advanced imaging technique looking 

at some of the gray matter in the brain. 

We have had investigators and surgeons at the National Naval 

Medical Center use near-infrared spectroscopy to help in their 

angiography, getting better pictures and better understanding of 

the vasculature and the vascular damage that may occur in significant injuries. 

There has been a bit of work done on PET scans; specifically, 

Walter Reed has done a great deal of work on that. The SPECT 

scans, another form of functional imaging that has been utilized 

with soldiers at Fort Carson, and there is a protocol about to further evaluate that in San Antonio. 

The CDMRP process, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Process funded some initiatives looking at functional MRI. 

We have been working with industry as industry is working to 

modify some of their imaging equipment to make CT and MRI 

scanners smaller, more portable, utilizing head-only. These would 

possibly lead to being able to place such devices farther forward in 

the field to be closer to the points of injury. We have been looking 

at other technologies in addition to imaging such as: quantitative 

EEG in neurophysiology; electrical signals from the skull known as 

piezoelectricity; and looking at ultrasound technologies. 

One of the things that I am proud of is that at end of this month, 

May 24 through 27, USU, the Uniformed Services University, is 

hosting the 7th Annual World Congress of the International Brain 

Mapping and Intraoperative Surgical Planning Society. This conference features academic presentations featuring the latest technologies in neuroimaging and other translational technologies. 

DOD, DVBIC, and the NIH are sponsors. Last year’s keynote 

speaker included our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral 

Mullen, and currently slated this year as our keynote speaker is 

President Obama. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Beck, please update us on the status of the TBI registry that 

was mandated in 2008, NDAA. How are DOD and VA working together to keep the registry up to date? 

Ms. BECK. The TBI Veterans Health Registry is functional, and 

it is currently providing reports on a monthly basis. We are in a 

data validation mode now—identifying the data sources, assuring 

that all of the data feeds that we need are available and assuring 

that the data coming from the registry is valid. 

We received a roster from DOD of veterans who have separated 

and become—or of active-duty servicemembers who have been deployed in support of OEF/OIF and have become veterans. We also 

are receiving pre-deployment health assessments and post-deployment health risk assessments. We have those available for integration into the record. 

We are also receiving and have added—all of the veterans who 

have any service connection for Traumatic Brain Injury are in the 

record. That is approximately 24,000 veterans to date. 

40 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. 

Senator Burr? 

[No response.] 

Chairman AKAKA. Senator Murray? 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you. I just had one quick question. I 

wanted to know, maybe Colonel Jaffee or Dr. Batten, how the DOD 

is working to distinguish between TBI and PTSD. 

Colonel JAFFEE. That is an excellent question which has been a 

major focus of emphasis for both of us in the DOD and VA over 

the past several years. There has been an ongoing amount of research dedicated to that process, to that end. DVBIC cosponsored 

with the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force an international 

symposium on behavioral health and Traumatic Brain Injury, 

bringing together a lot of the best researchers in the country 

throughout the VA and DOD systems and around the world to 

evaluate the state of the science and develop appropriate ways to 

manage this. 

There have been consensus conferences hosted by the VA, including the DOD, looking at ways to handle what we call these dual 

diagnoses or comorbidities. Our current guidelines, as we have 

them, is that if you are identified with symptoms that have either 

one of them, then you need to undergo screening and evaluation, 

because our whole philosophy in our current treatment plan and 

guidelines is that we want to make sure that we are aware of all 

the conditions an individual may have and incorporate that into 

their management plan. 

We have found from experience that if we focus only on one and 

not the other, the ultimate outcomes are not as favorable as if we 

can integrated both together. So, what we have found is when we— 

looking at a lot of data and research, which is actually from our 

VA colleagues who have been very excellent in quantifying this— 

we have found that not everyone who has a TBI has PTSD; not everyone who has PTSD has a TBI; but there is a robust overlap, and 

that overlap tends to cluster at approximately 45 percent, which 

makes that holistic evaluation and incorporation into the treatment 

plan a very important aspect of that process. 

So through these combined efforts, I think we have been able to, 

through our educational efforts, get people away from the paradigm 

of a few years ago, which was looking at this as an either/or phenomenon and looking at this as a comorbidity that requires a comprehensive management plan. 

Senator MURRAY. OK. I appreciate that. I assume the treatment 

is different depending on whether you have TBI or PTSD or both. 

Colonel JAFFEE. There are considerations that need to be taken 

into account if one has both. As one example, if someone has residual cognitive deficits from their Traumatic Brain Injury, they may 

not be as capable of participating in the types of psychotherapies 

that one might choose in certain cases of Post Traumatic Stress 

Disorder. So being able to quantify and identify these aspects allows us to target the most appropriate treatments for all the symptoms that the individual may have. 

Senator MURRAY. OK. I appreciate that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Murray. 

41 

Senator Isakson, any questions? 

Senator ISAKSON. No. 

Chairman AKAKA. Senator Tester? 

Senator TESTER. Yes, very quickly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Beck, are you familiar with VA’s Office of Rural Health? 

Ms. BECK. I am sorry. Can you repeat the question? 

Senator TESTER. Are you familiar with the VA’s Office of Rural 

Health? 

Ms. BECK. Oh, yes, sir. I am sorry. I did not—— 

Senator TESTER. How closely do you work with them? 

Ms. BECK. We work closely with the office. We have participated 

with the ORH in the development of requests for proposals and reviews of the projects that Rural Health is undertaking. 

Senator TESTER. And what kind of projects—are you using—let 

me just cut right to it. I mean, do you use them for devising plans 

for outreach to veterans in rural America and treatment efforts? Is 

that something that is within their purview and that you would 

utilize them for? 

Ms. BECK. I would like to take that for the record, sir, because 

the scope of services that our Office of Rural Health is providing 

right now, I think we would like to give you a full listing of those. 

Senator TESTER. That is fine. I was just wondering how you are 

utilizing them, if they are effective, if there is something that we 

can do to make them more effective. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. JON TESTER TO LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response: VA has no specific outreach efforts or initiatives directly related to Veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) residing in rural areas. However, VHA 

Rural Health has two TBI telehealth initiatives that will be useful in rural settings. 

They are the TBI telehealth screening and the TBI case management home buddy 

dialog. Both were mentioned at the hearing. 

Senator TESTER. My last question is—Senator Begich asked a little bit about this. How effective is telemed in dealing with TBI or 

PTSD? 

Ms. BECK. We are in the early stages of evaluating telemedicine 

and telehealth technologies for TBI, and—— 

Senator TESTER. How long is this evaluation going to take? The 

reason I ask is because we are dealing with something that is pretty time sensitive here. I mean, there are all sorts of issues. Senator 

Begich has told me about a soldier who came back—— 

Ms. BECK. Yes, we are fast-tracked to look at these technologies. 

Senator TESTER. So what kind of timeframe are we looking at? 

Ms. BECK. I expect that we will have our TBI screening up and 

running this year and be able to give you some feedback on the 

way the implementation of that program is working. 

Senator TESTER. As far as the effectiveness of the telemed. 

Ms. BECK. Effectiveness and usefulness of that program. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The information requested during the hearing follows:] 

42 

RESPONSE TO REQUEST ARISING DURING THE HEARING BY HON. JON TESTER TO LUCILLE BECK, PH.D., CHIEF CONSULTANT, REHABILITATION SERVICES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Response: See our response to Sen. Murray about the status of TBI screening. 

Findings of these programs are not yet available, and are expected in fiscal year 

2011. 

Ms. BATTEN. There are actually several PTSD studies that have 

been completed. They are with smaller groups because they were 

pilot studies, but they have shown that telemedicine for PTSD is— 

at this point, it looks like it is approximately as effective as treatment in person. So those are pilot studies. They are smaller. We 

cannot draw large generalizations. But so far the pilot data are 

good. 

Senator TESTER. Well, I think that is a good sign. The margin 

for error here is we want to make it as close to zero as possible, 

and that is why I think it is critically important in rural areas because it is one of the ways that are being utilized to reach out to 

veterans. I think it makes sense if it is effective. If it is not effective, we should not be wasting our time on it. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Senator Begich? 

Senator BEGICH. I do not have anything further right now. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Let me thank this panel for your statements. It is valuable for 

what we are trying to do together. And I want to stress that word 

‘‘together’’ between DOD and VA as well as the Congress. We 

would certainly like to do all we can to give the best service possible to the servicemembers and veterans of our country. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. BECK. Thank you. 

Chairman AKAKA. Now I would like to welcome the witnesses on 

our second panel. 

They are: Mrs. Karen Bohlinger, the Second Lady of Montana; 

Mr. Jonathan Barrs, an Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran; Dr. 

Bruce Gans, who is the Executive Vice President and Chief Medical 

Officer at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation; Mr. Michael 

Dabbs, President of the Brain Injury Association of Michigan; and 

joining him today is the veterans program manager, Retired Air 

Force Major Richard Briggs, Jr., who is seated in the front row. 

Senator Isakson would like to welcome our next panelist. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, first of all, Mr. Chairman, for allowing Dr. LaPlaca to testify today. I am very proud as a Georgian, 

even though I graduated from the University of Georgia, to introduce a distinguished professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and Emory University in biomedical engineering. 

Dr. LaPlaca received her doctorate degree from the University of 

Pennsylvania, is trained in neurosurgery, and is funded by both the 

National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation 

in her research on brain injury, spinal cord injury, and cognitive 

disabilities from both injury as well as aging. We are delighted to 

welcome her today to testify. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

43 

I thank all of you for being here. Your full testimony will appear 

in the record. 

Ms. Bohlinger, would you please proceed with your statement? 

STATEMENT OF KAREN L. BOHLINGER, SECOND LADY, 

STATE OF MONTANA 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today 

about TBI from a very personal view. My son, a former Special 

Forces officer with nearly 12 years of experience, has one severe 

and one moderate head injury. He is now classified as 100 percent 

disabled. 

We are over 4 years into active and ongoing treatment with moderate results. However, this is primarily due to my personal commitment of time and money invested in my son’s care, as opposed 

to the services he has received through the Veteran Administration 

Health Care System, and he had the unfortunate experience of 

being one of the early TBIs, so I just need to make that clear, because there have been some incredible improvements since the 

early years. 

I continue to fly to Seattle every 10 days and stay as long as necessary to monitor and assist in his care. I think it was 2008 when 

I was home 22 days out of 365. He is determined to live independently and has surpassed all predictions for functional independence. I cannot bring him home to Montana as Montana does not 

have appropriate follow-up care for him, and, again, that rural 

issue is huge. These are individuals whose culture is rural. They 

are not used to being in a city environment, and as we all know, 

additional stress is not good for a TBI. 

Since 2007, I have tried to be an advocate for other veterans and 

their families, with the hope of their receiving more timely, effective, and state-of-the-art care. I have personally visited several VA 

medical centers throughout the United States to observe and learn. 

And I will tell you this very forthrightly, that the guided tour as 

the Second Lady of Montana and my going in just as an individual 

are two entirely different experiences. 

Our Montana congressional delegation, especially our Senator 

Tester, and Secretary Shinseki of the Veteran’s Administration 

have been very accessible and responsive. I feel they have shown 

extraordinary leadership for our veterans and their families. 

Changes in the delivery of care since 2008 are unprecedented 

from my perspective as an organizational psychologist in an institutional setting. Inclusion of family members in case management, 

caregiver status for reimbursement, care coordination, and outreach efforts are absolutely necessary components of treatment, 

and while they are mandated by what you all have passed into law, 

they are not being implemented across all the VA centers at all. 

And while we are grateful for the many devoted and competent VA 

employees—and I would say Dr. Jay Umamoto at the Seattle VA 

is an extraordinary asset to the VA—what we know is that consistent standards of care should be available to all veterans. 

I cannot stress enough the importance of family involvement, as 

TBI self-assessment is often very different from the family memVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
44 

ber’s assessment. These guys do not want anything wrong with 

them. It takes a long time to break through that denial. 

The VA Medical System in Baltimore, MD, for TBI/PTSD is one 

shining example of what your legislation did, and so I would just 

like to let you know that they have a model that preserves the dignity and respect for the veteran. They include the family members. 

They bring them into a room, and from the very first point, it is 

total family, open involvement that builds trust rather than separate groups that undermine trust. They really have worked at how 

to best transition the new life together. 

I have met and worked with, on a volunteer basis, literally hundreds of soldiers, veterans, and family members. There is not a day 

that goes by that I do not have a phone call or an interaction, especially with young wives, who have not the life experience to deal 

with what is now going on in their family. 

I have learned some important insights to pass on to you. Number 1 is this: neuroimaging is a critical component in a TBI assessment, treatment planning, and, most importantly, the disability 

rating. There have been so many cases where the opinion said this 

soldier is 10 percent disabled, yet their life disintegrates. Then, 

after they get a scan, it is set at 100 percent. Scans are available 

in the private sector. Our soldiers deserve no less. 

Technology is available that demonstrates brain function. We 

have already heard about that today. My message is this is not a 

guessing game. These are people’s lives. My son was given many 

medications which ultimately caused more damage than his original injury. We have been through hell literally, which was not necessary. 

I private-paid for a brain scan to determine what course of care 

was scientifically needed. Latest and best technology must be available to all. News correspondent Bob Woodruff—and you all know 

him—was given the best medical treatment money could buy. His 

family was with him every step of the way. They were not separated into separate groups. He had a spirit that would not quit, 

and his recovery has been remarkable, and he is still advocating 

for veterans, most recently on suicide prevention and including 

family members. Our wounded warriors have the spirit, no doubt 

about it, but lack the same level of medical care. 

When neuroimaging is integrated with neuropsychological and 

neurocognitive evaluations, biometrics and social functioning, you 

can get an effective treatment plan and really make a difference in 

the soldier’s recovery. 

Number 2, Pre/Post Assessments for cognitive and neural functioning. Current technology allows for biomarker testing. I do not 

know what the components are of the screening that the gentleman 

referred to before, but I would be interested to know if that is included. What I do know is that this is a scientific baseline. It is 

a statement that cannot be changed. A lot of us know that the selfand counselor assessments are not always accurate. People tell us 

that they lie on them, period. So that much we know. 

We also know that we do not need more money for this. It is already covered under TRICARE. It is a $450 test. We already give 

a blood test to all the soldiers. 

45 

Number 3, follow-up treatment. Functional independence is a realistic goal for many. Relearning their own abilities and developing 

strategies to make up for injury-related deficiencies and losses—it 

works. We just know that it works. 

Treatment must be personal, bring about patient engagement, 

positive response, and include performance-based outcomes. 

I was employed one time as a caseworker early in my career at 

a hospital, and if we did not have measurable outcomes, we did not 

have a job. That is not the current state of situation that you have 

going on right now. 

Services should be veteran driven and not for the staff’s convenience. Scheduling a TBI group during peak traffic hours is a disincentive for participation because it creates more stress than benefits. As Mrs. Murray knows, eight lanes of traffic in Seattle getting 

to the hospital on Columbia Way between 3 and 5 o’clock—— 

Senator MURRAY. It is stressful for me. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Me, too, as the mom driving. It is not good for 

them, and so this last group was canceled. So when you all get the 

paperwork, it is going to say, ‘‘Gee, there were not enough soldiers 

who wanted to participate.’’ That is not the case. They just cannot 

do it at that time of day. 

Also, their TBI group was canceled a couple of days before 

Thanksgiving until the end of January. When do these people need 

care the most? When do they need a contact? Because they have 

lost their wives. My son lost his high school sweetheart wife. That 

is when they need the care. So when I say it should not be staff 

convenience, I mean it should be veteran-centered. 

And this one I feel very passionate about. 

There are many active-duty soldiers and marines who would ask 

for help if they could without consequences to their career. Last 

fall, I was part of a meeting on a military base with over 400 soldiers in attendance, and family members in addition to that. Many 

had served at least three tours in Iraq. When asked through a confidential questionnaire how many felt they had symptoms of either 

TBI or PTSD, over 40 percent responded yes and that they would 

ask for help if there were not negative consequences attached. 

One example I would like to give you is a soldier with 19 years— 

19 years—in the Army. He has been to Iraq four times. And he was 

ordered to go again. He told his commanding officer, ‘‘Sir, I cannot 

do that. I am not OK.’’ He has a wife and four children. His commanding officer said, ‘‘Well, sir, then you are going to get a dishonorable discharge.’’ So the wife called me, and I got a doctor to donate a scan for him, and he is a mess. He has a severe TBI along 

with PTSD, and now he is on a medical stay. So those are the 

things that we are talking about. Their family did not have the 

money for a scan. 

Additional treatment is not always about more money, however. 

Effective use of current dollars, with measurable outcomes that 

would include feedback from veterans and family members—I listened to all of what is going on in this testimony, and I find it really interesting because my personal experience has been so different 

with no mechanism by which for me to give feedback—good, objecVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
46 

tive, accurate feedback. I think that that is a critical component in 

any care, especially of this magnitude. 

Also, create incentives that benefit the veteran. Are they in 

healthy social networks? You know, what are they involved in? Instead, we have created a system where the community mental 

health providers for the VA are reimbursed for the number of 

DSM-IV diagnoses. So they may come in with TBI and PTSD, and 

now they are diagnosed with depression, sleep disorder, ‘‘Oh, you 

might be bipolar,’’ and, ‘‘You know, I think you have a borderline 

personality as well.’’ 

I was in a training session with over 250 VA providers. I overheard them discussing how to ‘‘tag’’ the veteran with multiple diagnoses so they could make more money. Clearly, that does not benefit the veteran, and it does not benefit the taxpayer. 

Chairman AKAKA. Ms. Bohlinger, will you please summarize your 

statement? 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Yes, OK. I just admire that you continue to do 

this. They fought for us, protected our freedom. We need to protect 

them. 

I would just say to you: What does my son miss most? Just working. He is a Montanan. He wants to work. 

Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bohlinger follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KAREN L. BOHLINGER, SECOND LADY, 

STATE OF MONTANA

Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I appreciate the opportunity 

to speak with you today about TBI from a very personal view. My son, a former 

Special Forces officer with nearly 12 years of service, has one severe and one moderate head injury. He is classified as 100% disabled. 

We are 41⁄2 years into active and ongoing treatment with moderate results. However, this is primarily due to my personal commitment of time and money invested 

in my son’s care, as opposed to the services he has received through the Veteran 

Administration Healthcare System. 

I continue to fly to Seattle every 10 days and stay as long as necessary to assist 

in and monitor his care. He is determined to live independently and has surpassed 

all predictions for functional independence. I cannot bring him home as Montana 

does not provide the follow up TBI care he needs. 

Since 2007, I have tried to be an advocate for other veterans and their families, 

with the hope of their receiving more timely, effective and state-of-the-art care. I 

have personally visited several VA medical centers throughout the United States to 

observe and learn. 

Our Montana Congressional Delegation and Secretary Shinseki, of the Veteran’s 

Administration, have been accessible and responsive. They have shown extraordinary leadership for our veterans and their families. 

Changes in the delivery of care since 2008 are unprecedented in an institutional 

setting. Inclusion of family members in case management, caregiver status for reimbursement, care coordination and outreach efforts are necessary components of 

treatment, and while mandated are not implemented in all VA Centers. While we 

are grateful for the many devoted and competent VA employees, consistent standards of care should be available to all veterans. 

I cannot stress enough the importance of family involvement, as TBI self assessment can often be very different than the family member assessment. It requires 

a team effort for best outcomes. 

The VA Medical System in Baltimore, Maryland for TBI/PTSD is a model that 

preserves the dignity, and respect for the veteran, while including and training family members in how to best transition to their new life together. 

I have met and worked with, on a volunteer basis, hundreds of soldiers, veterans 

and their family members, especially young wives, who have not the life experience 

or training to understand their new reality. 

I feel I have learned some important insights to pass on to you: 

47 

1. Neuroimaging is a critical component in TBI assessment, treatment planning 

and disability rating. 

Technology is available which demonstrates brain function and activity. It is not 

a guessing game. My son was given many medications, which ultimately caused 

more damage than his original injuries. We have been through hell, unnecessarily. 

I had to private pay for a brain scan to determine what course of care was scientifically needed. Latest and best technology must be made available for all TBI 

veterans. News correspondent Bob Woodruff was given the best medical treatment 

money can buy. His family was with him every step of the way and he had a spirit 

that would not quit, and look at his remarkable recovery. Our wounded warriors 

also have the spirit, but lack the same level of medical care. 

When neuroimagaging is integrated with neuropsychological and neurocognitive 

evaluations, biometrics and social functioning, a more effective treatment plan can 

be developed. 

2. Pre/Post Assessments for cognitive and neural functioning. Current technology 

allows for bio-marker testing. This would provide a scientific baseline. This is a 

statement that cannot be changed. It ensures accuracy. Self and counselor assessments are not always accurate. 

3. Follow-up treatment: 

A. Functional independence is a realistic goal for many. Re-learning their own 

abilities and developing strategies to make up for injury related deficiencies/ 

losses works. 

B. Treatment must be personal, bring about patient engagement, positive response and include performance based outcome measures. 

C. Services should be veteran driven not for the staff’s convenience. Scheduling a TBI group during peak traffic hours is a disincentive for participation, 

because it creates more stress than benefits. 

4. There are many active duty soldiers and Marines who would ask for help if 

they could do so, without consequences to their career. Last fall, I was part of a 

meeting on a military base with over 400 soldiers in attendance; many had served 

over 3 tours of duty in Iraq. When asked through a confidential questionnaire how 

many felt they had symptoms of either TBI or PTSD, over 40% responded yes and 

would like help, but did not feel they could ask for it, without negative 

consequences. 

Additional treatment is not always about more money. Effective use of current 

dollars, with measurable outcomes that includes feedback from the veterans and 

family members, would provide accurate information about what is working and 

what is not. 

Create incentives that benefit the veteran. For example, current community mental health providers for the VA are reimbursed per the number of DSM III diagnosis. In a training session of over 250 VA providers, I overheard providers discussing how to ‘‘tag’’ the veteran with multiple diagnoses so they could make more 

money. Clearly this does not benefit the veteran, or the tax paying public. 

I admire the continuing commitment and the bi-partisan effort to make the necessary changes that will provide the best possible services for our veterans. They 

have fought for and protected our freedom; it is our duty to protect them. They deserve respect, dignity and self worth. 

What does my son miss most? Working! He is after all a Montanan and we work! 

He loves his country and would go active military if he could. Thank you for 

listening! 

Senator MURRAY [presiding]. Thank you very much for that testimony. It is extremely helpful. We will accommodate you in Seattle 

any time, although I know the heart of Montana wants to be back 

home. 

Mr. Barrs? 

STATEMENT OF JONATHAN W. BARRS, 

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM VETERAN 

Mr. BARRS. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Burr, and other Members of the Committee. As you know, my 

name is Jonathan Barrs, and I live in Cameron, NC. I just want 

to thank you for inviting me to testify today before this Committee. 

48 

I am 24 years old, and I served in the Marine Corps in Iraq in 

2005–06 and also in 2007–08. During my first deployment in 2005– 

2006, I was a turret gunner in a Humvee. During combat operations, I experienced two improvised explosive device (IED) blasts 

in a period of a week. The first IED detonated approximately 30 

to 50 feet from my vehicle. When it exploded, the concussion from 

the blast slammed me into the turret. Glass from the vehicle became embedded in my head, but I did not think much of it at the 

time and I did not seek medical care. The second IED blast occurred about the same distance away as the first. After the second 

blast, the corpsman checked me out. It was never really documented. He just shined a light in my eyes to see if I could stay 

with him, and he asked me what day of the week it was. Of course, 

I never knew what day of the week it was, but shortly afterwards, 

I was kept off of mission due to stomach problems. I was eventually 

taken to another Forward Operating Base, also known as a FOB, 

because of excessive weight loss and was given steroids to fix the 

problem. 

I was screened by the DOD for TBI, and was diagnosed with it 

in November 2008. At that time, I never looked to see exactly how 

it would impact me in the future. Basically, all I knew was I still 

wanted to be in the Marine Corps, and I did not know exactly what 

was going on. 

I was medically retired in May 2009. The hand-off from DOD to 

the VA was very slow. I have been out of the Marine Corps for almost a year now, and I am just now getting care for the TBI. I 

have also been screened by VA for PTSD, and I have been diagnosed with PTSD and depression. 

So far, the VA care has been good, but this whole time of waiting 

was very hard. I had to keep asking my primary care doctor for a 

consult, which took a very long time. I have a case manager at VA 

in Fayetteville. Her name is Robin. She is a great woman. She really does do everything she can in her power to help me, mostly by 

just checking up on me. I get random phone calls from her asking 

me how I am doing, and she reschedules my appointments when 

I miss them. She is currently helping me change my primary care 

doctor. The reason behind that is because the doctor seems like he 

is not really concerned about me, just more concerned about what 

the books tell him to do. 

The honest truth is dealing with TBI is like a living horror film 

over and over again. Daily things you are supposed to do, you forget. I have missed at least five important VA appointments, also 

others not so important. I missed a job interview because I forgot 

about it. When you forget, the PTSD side of you rolls around because you knew you were never like this before, and it makes it 

very hard for people to deal with you. For example, the relationship 

I have with my girlfriend. It has been over a year now, and things 

are not really right due to the injuries, just mostly because I forget 

things and I get to the point where I just kind of snap. So dealing 

with all that is pretty hard. 

I went to junior college and tried to get through the course work 

to get a degree, but I was trying and still failing tests. The teachers 

found out I was in a special populations group and felt sorry for 

me, and they started giving me all this leeway and saying they will 

49 

do whatever it takes for me to get a passing grade. I knew that getting passing grades I had not earned would not be the way I wanted to do things. I was only trying to better myself, and they were 

making it hard to do that because they were willing to make excuses for me. 

In conclusion, of all these things that have been addressed, life 

for me as of now is hard because I look for jobs and the documentation of my Marine Corps—excuse me. I am sorry. I look for jobs, 

and when the documentation of my Marine Corps career is shown 

to the interviewer, just the look on their face will say it all; basically, judging off of what my DD–214 is telling them, and when all 

is said and done, I am denied a job just because they see the words 

‘‘temporarily disabled.’’ 

For the time being I am focused on getting my VA and Social Security squared away and still looking for another career path. 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time and efforts to 

help me and also hopefully other veterans down the road. I will be 

happy to answer any questions that you have for me. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barrs follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JONATHAN W. BARRS, OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

Good morning Chairman Akaka and Ranking Member Burr. My name is Jonathan Barrs and I live in Cameron, North Carolina. Thank you for inviting me to 

testify today before this Committee. 

I am twenty-four and served as a Marine in Iraq in 2005–2006 and 2007–2008. 

During my first deployment in 2005–2006, I was in a turret gunner in a Humvee. 

During combat operations, I experienced two Improvised Explosive Device (IED) 

blasts in a period of a week. The first IED detonated approximately thirty to fifty 

feet from my vehicle. When it exploded, the concussion from the blast slammed me 

into the turret. Glass from the vehicle became embedded in my head, but I did not 

think much of it at the time and did not seek any medical care. The second IED 

blast occurred about the same distance away as the first. After the second blast, the 

corpsman checked me out. He shined a light in my eyes and asked me what day 

it was just to see if I was able to stay with him. 

Documentation was never given for the IED explosions, but shortly afterwards I 

was kept off of mission due to stomach problems and eventually taken to another 

Forward Operating Base because of excessive weight loss and was given steroids to 

fix the problem. 

I was screened by the DOD for TBI and it was diagnosed in November 2008. At 

the time, I never looked to see exactly how this would impact me in the future. 

I was medically retired in May 2009. The hand-off from DOD to VA was very 

slow. I have been out of the Marine Corps for almost a year now and I am just now 

getting care for the TBI. I have also been screened by VA for PTSD and I have been 

diagnosed with PTSD and depression. 

So far, the VA care has been good, but this whole time of waiting was very hard 

and I had to keep asking my primary care doctor for a consult, which took a very 

long time. I have a case manager at VA in Fayetteville. Her name is Robin she is 

a great woman who does everything in her power to help me help myself by checking up on me and rescheduling my appointments when missed and currently helping me change my primary care doctor, because the doctor seems like he isn’t really 

concerned about me, just more concerned about what the book tells him to do. 

The honest truth is dealing with TBI is like a living horror film over and over 

again. Daily things that you know you’re supposed to do, you forget. I have missed 

at least five important VA appointments also others not so important and I missed 

a job interview because I forgot about it. When you forget, the PTSD side of you 

rolls around because you knew you were never like this and it makes it very hard 

for people to deal with you. For example, the relationship I have with my girlfriend. 

It’s been over a year now, but things aren’t really right due to injuries that occurred 

while I was in the Marine Corps and I am still dealing with now I am out of the 

Marine Corps. 

I went to junior college and tried to get through the coursework to get a degree, 

but I tried so hard and I was still failing tests. The teachers found out because I 

50 

was in a special populations group and felt sorry for me and they started giving me 

all this leeway and saying they will do whatever it took to get me a passing grade. 

I knew that getting passing grades I hadn’t earned wouldn’t be the way I wanted 

to do things. I was only trying to better myself and they were making it hard to 

do that because they were willing to make excuses for me. 

In conclusion, of all things that have been addressed, life for me as of now is very 

hard because I look for jobs and when the documentation of my Marine Corps career 

is shown to the interviewer, just the look on there face says it all, basically judging 

off of what my DD–214 is telling them and when all is said and done I am denied 

a job just because they see the words ‘‘temporarily disabled’’ on my DD–214. For 

the time being I am focusing on getting my VA and Social Security squared away 

and still looking for another career path. 

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time and efforts to help me and also 

other veterans. I will be happy to answer any questions that you have for me. 

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Barrs, thank you so much for your courage 

in coming forward and telling your story to help us understand others. I appreciate your being here. 

Mr. BARRS. You are welcome, ma’am. 

Senator MURRAY. Dr. Gans? 

STATEMENT OF BRUCE M. GANS, M.D., EXECUTIVE VICE 

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, KESSLER INSTITUTE FOR REHABILITATION 

Dr. GANS. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Burr and 

Members of the Committee. I am Dr. Bruce Gans. I had the pleasure to be here in 2007 and to provide some input, and I am very 

pleased to be able to be back here and try to give you some sense 

of, at least from my view, what has changed, where the advances 

are, and where we still have opportunities for improvement. 

In 2007 I made a few recommendations, and I would just like to 

give you a sense of what those were and my view of what happened 

since then. 

The big theme was trying to find coordination between the private sector and the VA and DOD, to find a way for the organizations to work together, not just on a day-to-day operational basis 

but strategically, to plan together, to create seamless systems of 

care that could take advantage of all the collective resources that 

would be available. We suggested the creation of a Coordinating 

Council as a mechanism to do that. I am not aware of that type 

of enterprise having been conducted, and I am not aware of an organized strategic plan between the field, the private providers as 

a community, and VA and DOD as systems of care to try to make 

a seamless system of care available to veterans and active servicemembers. 

We also talked about the case management and care coordination 

services and how they needed to be improved. There has been very 

significant improvement, as we have heard today. There are still 

some deficiencies that I will tell you about when I tell you some 

stories of family members that I have interviewed recently in anticipation of coming here before you. 

In 2007 I also talked about research that was ongoing and urged 

that there be some collaboration and cooperation between the existing network of Traumatic Brain Injury research systems, the model 

systems, and the VA and DOD. I am happy to tell you that there 

has been some increasing collaboration. There are some data collection efforts with the model systems and the VA Polytrauma Rehab 

51 

Centers. We heard about a number of research projects that are 

also being funded, but I will also tell you there are still opportunities in that regard as well. 

In terms of the current state of treatment of individuals with especially severe, the most severe Traumatic Brain Injuries, there 

are diagnostic tools that Dr. Jaffee, Col. Jaffee mentioned to you. 

I will mention a few others. In addition to the functional magnetic 

resonance imaging and the magnetoencephalography, there is magnetic resonance spectroscopy, there is quantitative electroencephalography, and near infrared spectroscopy. These are tools that are 

existing but, frankly, not commonly used and not readily available. 

And more than just diagnostic tools, we are now starting to see 

that they can even be used as tools to guide treatment, to suggest 

interventions, to monitor the effect of medications, to determine 

what is going on, and to guide changes in treatment management. 

On the treatment front, there really have been some dramatic 

new technologies made available for patients. Many of them are 

not yet proven scientifically. We have growing clinical experience. 

We have anecdotes. We do have some examples of specific studies. 

I want to mention just a couple of them. 

In the use of medications to treat brain injuries, conventional 

medicine would have you use one drug at a time and be careful in 

its administration to figure out what it does. Now the notion is 

going to be using many drugs all at the same time by expert clinicians who understand the interaction of these drugs and the fact 

that in combination they may work differently than individual effect. These so-called drug cocktails, which are actually quite a common strategy in cancer care, have not traditionally been part of the 

care of patients in rehabilitation from serious brain injuries. 

Adding nutraceuticals—these are materials that are available 

that are not classified as drugs but are drug-like in their effect. 

They have many interesting properties. Some come from Eastern 

medicine. There are centers experimenting with and trying to use 

these additional stimulating drugs in ways that influence the brain 

neurochemistry. 

And there are a whole host of very intriguing interventional 

strategies available: peripheral nerve stimulation to help arouse 

the most severely unconscious individuals; and direct brain stimulation using either direct current or magnetic stimulation. These 

are available technologies. They are non-invasive, they are not 

harmful. They have very low risks, and they have very, very rapidly expanding scope of potential impact. But they are not being 

widely used in the world of brain injury rehabilitation, partly because they are so new that the full body of research is not totally 

available. 

The strategies in our clinical experiences at Kessler and a few 

other centers really suggest that the combination of using neuroimaging technologies and multi-drug and multi-physical modality 

interventions, along with the traditional rehabilitation strategies 

that we use, seem to have the best potential for making very significant differences in the lives of the most severely involved individuals. 

We have had these kinds of experiences at Kessler with patients. 

We recently submitted an article that has been approved for publiVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00055 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
52 

cation describing our clinical experiences and are about to launch 

a very significant research project trying to understand these 

multi-modality approaches and what beneficial effect they really 

have to offer. 

Another problem that you need to be aware of—it was actually 

mentioned—is there is a very significant shortage of professionals 

who know how to take care of people with brain injuries. Whether 

it is physicians, therapists, psychologists, or neuropsychologists, 

there just are not a lot of people who are highly skilled and dedicated to this population. These patients are extremely difficult to 

take care of; they are stressful for providers to take care of. And 

there is not that great a capacity to train people in this country. 

I am going to make a recommendation or two specifically in that 

regard as well. 

In terms of the coordination opportunities, there have been significant advances in the VA system, and I would like to recognize 

and applaud the work that has gone on. I personally had the opportunity to visit the Richmond VA Polytrauma Center and I have had 

a chance to visit the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, just 

as a couple of examples of where the DOD and the private sector 

and the VA have really made significant improvements in capacity 

in general to provide for care. 

But to find out what it seems to be like in the real world that 

I live in, I interviewed about two dozen providers of rehabilitation—executives, physicians, people in research, people who run 

large companies of rehab, people that provide or are part of advocacy organizations—to just ask them 3 years later, how is it going, 

what is your view, what are you seeing in the real world about how 

the private community is able to work with veterans, active military? What is going on? And that is, sadly, where I have to tell you 

that from the views of those that I talked to, there just does not 

seem to be a lot that is different. There definitely are some centers 

that have had a slow trickle of individuals. Most places have become capable of working with TRICARE to provide services under 

that financing mechanism. Yet, the single most common word I 

heard from the people I talked to is ‘‘frustrating.’’ These are folks 

who have the capacity to provide high-quality brain injury care and 

services, want to do it, want to be able to work within the system, 

but just have not consistently had a flow of individuals. 

In late 2008, some folks experienced a slight increase in referrals. Many of those seemed to disappear with time. It seemed to 

be coordinated with when the VA became—was able to staff up and 

build capacity. That may be just fine, but it is an observation that 

we made. 

I would like to just contrast that experience with what is going 

on with the VA and the DOD in another area, and that is with amputations. We see a number of patients who have traumatic amputations and injuries, and in that case we have seen dramatic advances in the technology of prosthetics by collaboration between the 

DOD, VA, and private providers. There are new exciting limbs 

being developed by DARPA for upper extremity amputees. We have 

seen significant improvement in the capacity to care for the amputees and their prosthetic needs. I would point out that it was said 

to me that about 97 percent of the amputee care that is provided 

53 

by the VA is done through private contractors. So in that particular 

case, the VA does use a network of community-based prosthetists 

to actually deliver the care and services, and it is high quality and 

has all the characteristics I think people would want to see. 

Another comment that I would like to share with you is the significant improvement in case management services. But what is interesting is that—what I was told is that—well, they are managing 

the people, but they are still not able to help them get access to 

the care, because although they are case managing and coordinating, there are still very significant limitations of who is available to be seen, to be referred to, to provide expert services. So the 

coordination is good, but the consequence of that coordination, the 

actual impact by having services delivered seems to still be deficient per the experience of the folks whom I talked to and to some 

degree the experience—— 

Chairman AKAKA [presiding]. Dr. Gans, please summarize your 

statement. 

Dr. GANS. I will. 

The last thing I would just like to say is I did talk with three 

active-duty servicemembers and their families Monday afternoon 

who are currently at Kessler, and they wanted me to share just a 

few of their experiences with you. They found that they would like 

to see easier ways of working with the system, the bureaucracy and 

the difficulty of having their choice to be expressed, to want to 

move to another provider outside of the VA Polytrauma System. 

One wife told me it took her a year from the time she started requesting until she was finally able to get a referral to—it happened 

to be Kessler in this case, and that was a lot of work and energy. 

That led to a sense of guilt. If they had only been able to start 

sooner, might things have been different? They felt that it just all 

took too long, and they also felt that there was a significant problem with access to services if they were to move into or accept medical discharge. They felt their resource access would be substantially reduced in terms of their flexibility to actually receive care 

and services. 

I guess I would like to close by thanking you for giving me the 

time to speak to you again, appreciating all the work the VA has 

done, but saying there are still things left unfinished. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Gans follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRUCE M. GANS, M.D., EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND

CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, KESSLER INSTITUTE FOR REHABILITATION

Good morning, Senator Akaka and Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me back to testify before this Committee regarding progress that has been 

made in the diagnosis and treatment of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and our experiences working with the VA to provide treatment and rehabilitation to servicemembers and veterans. 

I am Dr. Bruce Gans, a physician specializing in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). I hold the positions of Executive Vice President and Chief Medical 

Officer for the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. I am a past-president of the Association of Academic Physiatrists (the society that serves medical 

school faculty members and departments), and the American Academy of PM&R, 

which represents approximately 8,000 physicians who specialize in PM&R. Currently, I serve as Chair of the Board of the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association (AMRPA), the national association that represents our Nation’s 

rehabilitation hospitals and units. At the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School I am 

a Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. In the past, I have practiced 

54 

in academic medical centers as a faculty member at the University of Washington 

in Seattle, Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, Wayne State University in 

Detroit, Michigan, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. In Detroit I also served as President and CEO of the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan 

for 10 years. 

Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation is the largest medical rehabilitation hospital 

in the Nation. We operate specialized Centers of Excellence to treat adults with 

Traumatic Brain Injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputations, strokes and many other 

neurological and musculoskeletal diseases and injuries. We also operate more than 

70 sites for outpatient rehabilitation services in New Jersey that provide medical 

care, physical therapy, prosthetic fabrication and fitting, cognitive rehabilitation 

treatment, high technology wheelchairs and electronic assistive device fittings, and 

many other services. 

We are also a major medical rehabilitation education and research facility. In cooperation with the Kessler Foundation and the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, 

we train physicians, therapists, psychologists, and many other disciplines to provide 

rehabilitation services and run rehabilitation programs. We also conduct many research programs and projects to advance the knowledge and science of medical rehabilitation. Much of this research is funded under Federal grants from the National 

Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation 

Research (NIDRR), other Federal and state organizations and private foundations. 

PREVIOUS TESTIMONY

When I testified before this Committee in 2007, I expressed concern that the civilian rehabilitation providers in this country were capable, available and interested 

in providing high quality rehabilitation care and treatment to servicemembers and 

veterans but they were not being utilized. In particular, providers wanted to make 

themselves available to patients from their own communities so that long stays in 

far distant care centers could be prevented. I noted that there was little evidence 

of cooperative planning among the DOD, VA, and civilian sectors to make the best 

services available in a timely way in home communities. 

At that time I recommended the creation of a Coordinating Council on which leaders from all three stakeholders would participate in order to work together to strike 

a balance between building up care delivery capacity in Military Treatment Facilities (MTF) or VA health centers, and utilizing private partnerships when they were 

more cost effective and more appropriate for the needs of servicemembers and veterans. I also urged targeting case management and care coordination services so 

that individual patients and families could be helped to navigate among the military, VA, and private sectors to help make their care seamless and effective with 

a view to long-term needs once they returned to their home communities. 

In addition, I recommended that there be close collaboration and cooperation 

among the DOD, VA and the private TBI research community (especially the TBI 

Model Systems programs of NIDRR) to study the effectiveness of current treatment 

approaches, and to develop new breakthroughs in how to care for all levels of TBI, 

from mild, to moderate or severe. The allocation of research funds that could be 

used to sponsor research partnerships among the DOD, VA and private research 

community was also proposed. 

THE CURRENT STATE OF TBI REHABILITATION

Happily there have been some advances in the state-of-the-art for treating individuals with serious brain injuries. Many of the most advanced and innovative approaches have not yet found their ways into common practice. The newest innovations have not been fully researched to prove their efficacy, but clinical experience 

and some retrospective studies are showing much promise. 

Diagnosis 

New diagnostic tools such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI), 

Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS), quantitative Electroencephalographic brain mapping (QEEG) and Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) are all non-invasive methods of observing brain activity and responses to treatments. These evaluative tools are allowing clinicians to be aware of 

patient responses when behaviors cannot be observed, and serving as guides to how 

treatments should be modified. 

Treatment 

Innovative treatments are also being utilized. Pharmaceuticals are being much 

more aggressively used to help patients be aroused from coma, better organize their 

thinking, and control difficult behaviors. Multiple drug ‘‘cocktails’’ used by expert 

55 

clinicians appear to have beneficial effects. Supplemental uses of nutraceuticals are 

also being pursued, and intriguing clinical experience being accumulated. Physical 

modalities are being applied with much more intensity to attempt to help patients. 

They include peripheral nerve stimulation, brain stimulation by direct or magnetically induced currents, and neurofeedback. 

More interestingly, the use of these diagnostic and therapeutic modalities together, with multi-modal interventions, may be more effective than the conventional 

‘‘one at a time’’ approach used previously. Clinical experience gained at Kessler Institute and other centers in this regard has prompted the development of significant 

research projects to test these findings. A large study of this type is expected to 

begin shortly at Kessler Institute in partnership with the International Brain Research Foundation and the Kessler Foundation. 

Workforce Shortages 

There is a shortage of trained and experienced clinicians with experience in the 

treatment of TBI patients. Physicians in PM&R or Neurology, neuropsychologists, 

physical therapists and other rehabilitation disciplines are all highly sought after 

because of the demands of treating these patients and the shortage of available talent. For this reason, in part, patients have waited for prolonged periods to access 

treatment centers, and been shunted to regional or national centers of excellence, 

both the VA Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers, and occasionally at institutions like 

Kessler. 

CARE DELIVERY AND COORDINATION AMONG THE DOD, VA, AND CIVILIAN PROVIDERS

The proposed Coordinating Council was never pursued and, at least to my knowledge, the VA did not develop any organized method of identifying high quality providers in communities to supplement or obviate the need for them to hire scarce 

staff to treat patients internally. 

It is not my place to detail the changes in care delivery capacity of the VA or their 

relationship with the military. It is clear that the VA has strengthened the care delivered through its Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers and Polytrauma Network, 

and their coordination with the MTFs. I have personally had the opportunity to visit 

the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center in Richmond, Virginia, and the Center for the 

Intrepid in San Antonio, Texas, and was impressed by both of these facilities. 

In an effort to gauge the current status of the relationship between private providers and the VA and DOD and to share with this Committee, I communicated 

with more than 16 medical and administrative leaders in the field. These individuals ranged from rural providers to large national companies, and included community hospitals and large academic health systems. I asked these leaders to share 

with me their views on how care is being provided to patients in their communities, 

and what their facility experiences have been in working with the VA or the DOD. 

It appears that little has changed since 2007 regarding the use of local care providers for TBI care. Some private sector rehabilitation hospitals experienced a transient increase in referrals for evaluative services. Most if not all, had established 

relationships with TRICARE so that they could see patients and get reimbursed for 

the care they hoped to provide. The most common word used to describe the situation was ‘‘frustrating’’. Repeatedly, I heard comments such as, ‘‘we have high quality 

services available, but patients and their families are being uprooted to distant care 

settings for long periods of time. When they finally come back to their home community, there is little available to them for their long term needs.’’ 

One interviewee contrasted the TBI situation to that of Amputees. He pointed out 

the significant research partnerships among the DOD (DARPA in particular), VA, 

private centers and commercial interests to develop new advanced prostheses. He 

also pointed out that the vast majority of prosthetic care delivered by the VA is done 

through private contractors. 

Another individual commented that there has been a substantial increase in the 

availability of case management services. While individuals who work with specific 

patients are now more available, families have expressed great frustration that they 

don’t have contact with physicians and direct care providers; so the availability of 

case managers is not sufficiently helpful since they haven’t got access to the care 

itself. 

I can speak most readily about the experience of my own hospital, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. Since March 2007, Kessler Institute has cared for 10 servicemembers. Two patients currently are receiving inpatient care at our hospital. All 

were Active Duty at the time of admission. All 10 had serious TBI. Three also had 

Spinal Cord Injuries. One had multiple amputations as well as the TBI. Six of these 

patients were injured in theater, five from IEDs. The other four patients were injured in motor vehicle accidents. VA funds supported two of the patients while 

56 

TRICARE sponsored 9 (one patient transitioned from VA to TRICARE while at 

Kessler). 

Ironically, one of the first patients in this group was the son of Denise Mettie, 

the parent who testified to this Committee just before I did in 2007. Our chance 

meeting on that day led to her pressing for Evan to be referred to Kessler for ongoing care. Her experience of needing to be a strong and uncompromising advocate for 

her loved one has been a common thread for many of the families of the patients 

we have seen. Only with sustained pressure were many of these patients allowed 

to be referred to us. This observation is similar to the experience described by other 

leaders in the field whom I interviewed. 

TBI RESEARCH COOPERATION

There have been some advances in the collaboration among the DOD, VA and private sector in rehabilitation research. The Polytrauma Rehabilitation Centers have 

initiated work with the TBI Model Systems for data contribution and other purposes. Also, research centers around the country have been applying for funding 

from DOD solicitations in this area, and a number of active projects are underway 

at centers such as our own, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Harvard University, and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The research being conducted ranges 

from retrospective reviews of secondary data to assess outcomes and long-term effects, to clinical trials of innovative treatment approaches in the hope of finding 

breakthroughs in care. 

OVERALL ASSESSMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE VA AND

CIVILIAN PROVIDERS

The VA has clearly improved its capacity to care for patients with TBI. It has not 

done so with an eye to the long term needs of patients who return to more remote 

communities, however, and has, instead, chosen to strengthen its internal capacity. 

While I may have a limited sample, it appears that family members are dissatisfied with their inability to access providers of choice outside of the VA system, and 

that the case management system is not consistently resulting in better access to 

care. These observations may not be generally applicable, but seem to be on target 

for the most severely injured patients and their families. 

The research collaborations are encouraging, but not pushing the envelope far 

enough or fast enough. The truly innovative neurodiagnostic and therapeutic work 

appears to be being conducted outside of the VA, not within it. In fact, the conventional research establishment is showing some resistance to the most innovative approaches (multi-modal treatment protocols, for example). 

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is important to commend the VA and the DOD for their hard work and the 

progress they have made in the acute and early-phase care of patients with TBI. 

My concerns remain for the breadth and depth of that capacity and the anticipated 

life-long needs of a new generation of brain injured veterans. 

I still contend that collaboration with the private sector and enhanced efforts in 

this regard are the right thing to do. As large as the TBI problem in the military 

sector is, it is dwarfed by the magnitude of the problem in the civilian population. 

Over a million brain injuries occur in the US every year. Admittedly, not many are 

blast injuries, but when it comes to rehabilitation care, that is not a major distinguishing feature. Hence, the capacity in the civilian sector will not only be great, 

it will be available for the long term. The VA and DOD should work for strategic 

alliances with civilian providers so that a sustainable infrastructure of care delivery 

capacity for servicemembers and civilians is available now and for the foreseeable 

future. This could be accomplished beginning with creating the Coordinating Council I recommended previously. 

Congress could create incentives for the VA and DOD to improve collaboration by 

establishing a budget item for each to support this activity, and structuring the 

budgets so that rather than being penalized at the local level, a VA facility could 

access special supplemental funds if it found a way to utilize local resources to create a sustainable care delivery capacity. 

In particular, the VA and DOD should develop a method of early identification 

of individuals who are clearly going to be destined for medical discharge because 

of their injury. This ‘‘pre-discharge’’ determination should be a guiding condition 

that triggers care planning based not on regionalized care delivery within the VA, 

but prioritizes accessing closer to home providers that will be life-long resources to 

the patients and their families. 

57 

Congress could prioritize the research budgets for both the VA and DOD to promote searching for breakthrough research to dramatically advance the state of 

treatment and rehabilitation of TBI. Whether it supports stem-cell techniques to develop brain grafting possibilities, multi-modal rehabilitation interventions, or telerehabilitation, it should place a premium on dramatically improving our care capacity, not just incrementally advancing it. 

Further emphasis on funding training for TBI-related health professionals in 

more innovative ways is also an important possibility. For example, while the VA 

does currently support medical residency training and some fellowship training, 

there are administrative barriers for some of these positions to utilize advanced 

training settings outside of the VA. Rules should be changed as needed to allow 

trainees to learn in the most appropriate settings, regardless of whether they are 

within a VA or a civilian facility. 

The VA should explore how the innovative health care delivery ideas contained 

in the recently passed Health Care Reform legislation may be relevant to this population. In particular, demonstrations of an Accountable Care Organization focused 

on the TBI population could be implemented. Being charged with managing the best 

outcomes for the best value, regardless of provider setting, might stimulate new levels of collaboration. Similarly, establishing a demonstration Medical Home for TBI 

patients could show another way in which the care coordination resources and medical management obligations could be integrated to the benefit of patients and their 

families. 

CONCLUSIONS

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the men and women of our 

armed services and the agencies themselves for their dedication and sacrifices to defend and protect our country. I hope that these observations and suggestions can 

help to provide more and better care for those who have given so much for our Nation. 

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA TO

BRUCE M. GANS, M.D., EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, KESSLER INSTITUTE FOR REHABILITATION

Question 1. In her testimony, Mrs. Bohlinger discussed the importance of brain 

imaging to improve the accuracy of TBI screening. From your perspectives, what 

new imaging technologies are being developed or can be made available to VA? 

Response. There are many emerging imaging techniques that can both improve 

the diagnostic accuracy of identifying brain injury, and help to guide therapeutic 

interventions. One receiving the most attention right now is Functional Magnetic 

Resonance Imaging (fMRI) because it is capable of showing areas of metabolic activity in relationship to brain functions, such as motor, sensory, and even thought processes. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) can be very helpful in detecting subtle brain 

injuries. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) is becoming useful for observing 

metabolic activity within the brain and using that information for diagnostic purposes. 

Electrical ‘‘imaging’’ of the brain through studies of the wave patterns and analysis with quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) allows useful diagnostic information to be accumulated. In addition, magnetic electroencephalography (MEG) detects the magnetic fields generated by the electrical activity of the brain, and is potentially useful as a diagnostic tool. 

Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is a non-invasive method of studying the metabolic activity of the brain by observing blood flow patterns. It may serve to partially substitute for fMRI studies but is limited to allowing observation of only the 

activity at the surface levels of the brain (fMRI allows observation of deeper structures). 

Each of these methods has its strengths and limitations for contributing to the 

diagnosis and treatment of TBI. Their use depends on what information is needed 

or what treatment goals are being pursued. Many of these techniques are still being 

studied to better understand their value and ultimate role in the care of patients 

with TBI. As the research and clinical experience mature, it will become clearer as 

to which should become routinely available, which should be used just for research 

purposes, and which should be discarded because they do not contribute to helping 

in the care of patients. 

Today, the imaging methods that should be readily available to patients are fMRI 

(especially for patients with severe brain injury) and DTI (to help diagnose patients 

who have experienced a mild TBI). 

58 

Question 2. Cooperation with the private sector is important to expand access to 

care. However, veterans are a unique population. What steps has your organization, 

or other private entities with which you may be familiar, taken to become more ‘‘culturally literate’’ with respect to servicemembers and veterans? 

Response. Familiarity with the VA (more so than the military) health system is 

quite pervasive for physicians, since most of us have had at least part of our medical 

training in VA hospitals. As an organization, Kessler Institute has taken many 

steps to enhance its understanding and ability to work with both VA and military 

medicine. We have visited a number of military and VA health care facilities, 

interacted extensively with professionals from both settings, and encouraged close 

interactions between our case managers and other clinicians with military or VA 

care givers, coordinators, and administrators around the planning and delivery of 

care to patients, both active military and veterans. 

In addition, many senior officers have visited Kessler Institute to observe the care 

we have been providing to the servicemembers whom we have been allowed to treat. 

We have also received visitations by a number of VA professionals. 

Nationally, the field has reached out to both military and VA professionals to conduct training sessions, provide lectures, encouraged them to interact with their civilian colleagues, and promoted their participation in meetings of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (AAPM&R), the professional society of 

physicians who practice physiatry, and the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association (AMRPA), the national organization that represents rehabilitation hospitals and units. Both the AMRPA and the AAPM&R have reached out to 

the VA to attempt to systematically build mutual understanding and establish a relationship. 

It is common for civilian health care facilities to treat a diverse patient population, and at Kessler Institute, we train our staff formally in the concepts of cultural diversity. Our experience with the military and VA is not that different from 

other patients who identify with a specific culture, and I believe we have demonstrated sensitivity to each individual’s background, needs and concerns. The military and VA have done a great job of staying actively involved with the patients 

we have cared for, and helped us on a day-to-day basis to deal with the unique 

issues associated with their culture and systems. Family members also help to provide us with important insight and guidance on a regular basis. 

Question 3. Does your organization, or ones you are familiar with, use telehealth 

technologies to provide care and services to individuals with TBI? 

Response. Kessler Institute has limited experience with telemedicine. We do use 

remote radiology services to review all imaging studies; the images are transmitted 

digitally to offsite radiologists who read the films and transmit their reports electronically. There are institutions that do have experience in a variety of tele-rehabilitation activities. For example, the University of Pittsburgh operates a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) dedicated to tele-rehabilitation. It is 

funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) 

within the Department of Education. 

Question 4. Your testimony discussed that Kessler Institute will begin a study regarding the effectiveness of combining diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for 

treating TBI. Do you anticipate this new form of treatment would have a significant 

impact on cost? 

Response. If our research demonstrates the clinical effectiveness and value of 

these interventions, it is likely that they would become the standard of care. There 

are certainly short-term incremental costs associated with the use of these drugs, 

nutraceuticals, imaging studies, and electrical stimulation modalities. But, if these 

therapies help a patient to become more conscious (‘‘wake up’’) and able to walk, 

communicate, function, and return home instead of being a permanent resident of 

an institution, then the ultimate total costs of care will be substantially reduced and 

the cost benefit will be enormous. 

Question 5. Is there a benefit to continuing rehabilitation therapy, with the goal 

of maintaining a current level of functioning, for those with severe TBI for whom 

no further gains in functioning are expected? 

Response. The question of maintenance therapy is frequently addressed in medical rehabilitation. In many cases, formal therapy can be replaced with self-care programs performed by patients on their own or with family caregiver assistance. 

There are situations, however, where patients and families cannot sustain these activities on their own. The need for continuing formal therapy then depends on what 

the risks of deterioration are. Each case is unique, of course, so generalizations are 

difficult. The risks of disengaging from even seemingly simple therapies such as 

range of motion exercises can be profound. I have seen patients develop severe conVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
59 

tractures, serious skin ulcers, and even die from the lack of what was described as 

‘‘only maintenance’’ therapy. So, in the end, there needs to be reasoned clinical judgment applied to the individual patient. 

The other question is whether more improvement can be achieved with additional 

therapies or if the patient has ‘‘plateaued’’ and will not benefit any further. Recovery 

from serious brain injury can be likened to athletic training. For an athlete to obtain peak performance, sustained, intensive and consistent training is required. For 

a seriously impaired patient with a brain injury, it may take similar sustained, intensive and consistent therapy to make any improvements. For certain patients, 

even modest incremental gains can be very meaningful. How much further improvement is ‘‘enough’’ will depend on the individual, their goals and needs. In the case 

of our wounded warriors, I would give them the benefit of the doubt, and support 

longer term access to therapies, even if only ‘‘modest’’ benefits were expected. Once 

again, it is a matter of individual situations and expert clinical judgment. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Dr. Gans. 

Mr. Dabbs? 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL F. DABBS, PRESIDENT, BRAIN 

INJURY ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. DABBS. Good morning, and thank you, Senator Akaka, Senator Brown, and members of the staff of the Senate Committee on 

Veterans’ Affairs, for the opportunity to address you about how effective State, local, and private entities have been engaged by the 

Veterans Administration to provide the best access to care and 

services for veterans with TBI. 

The Brain Injury Association of Michigan was incorporated in 

1981 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is one of 44 chartered State affiliates of the Brain Injury Association of America. 

We are one of the leading State affiliates due to Michigan having 

more brain injury rehabilitation providers than any other State in 

the country. This extensive provider network has been developed 

over the past 37 years as a result of Michigan’s auto no-fault insurance system. It provides a lifetime continuum of care with a singular focus: to assist the injured victim recover to their fullest potential. My written testimony provides a comprehensive overview of 

our association: its veterans program under the guidance of Major 

Richard Briggs, Jr., U.S. Air Force (Retired), who is with me today; 

and the collaboration with the Michigan Department of Military 

and Veterans Affairs, the members of the Joint Veterans Council, 

the Veterans Service Organizations, the Michigan Association of 

County Veterans Counselors, and the Veterans Integrated Service 

Network 11 director and staff. As a result of this collaboration, I 

will share my observations, possible approaches, and potential solutions in response to the Committee’s inquiry. My comments only reflect my experiences within the Michigan region of VISN–11, which 

is the lower peninsula of Michigan. 

In Secretary Shinseki’s report, he indicated a number of ‘‘landmark programs and initiatives that VA has implemented to provide 

world-class rehabilitation services for veterans and active-duty 

servicemembers with TBI.’’ These are important developments, but 

let me express a few concerns. 

One, Enclosure A of his report, page 2, states that ‘‘VA directed 

medical facilities are to identify public and private entities within 

their catchment area that have expertise in neurobehavioral rehabilitation and recovery programs for TBI.’’ To date, in Michigan 

there have been only three such referrals according to the VISN– 

60 

11 Cooperative TBI Agreements Patient Tracking fiscal year 2009 

report. One of these was due to a mother’s insistence that such 

care be provided to her son. 

This is a critical part of my testimony. I have provided a chart 

based on the information shown on the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, better known as CARF, Web site 

that indicates all accredited brain injury providers in the United 

States. This report indicates that in military commission alone, 

there are nine brain injury residential rehabilitation providers with 

78 facilities; that is 24 percent of the U.S. total. Eight brain injury 

home and community-based rehabilitation providers with 16 facilities; that is 33 percent. There are similar percentages for outpatient rehabilitation providers and vocational rehabilitation 

services. 

There are even more non-CARF-accredited providers in Michigan, but, unfortunately, none of these providers or the CARF-accredited providers are being utilized to the extent they should be 

by the VA. I am going to provide the Committee with this book, 

which is our Directory of Facilities and Services in Michigan as a 

future reference. 

[The aforementioned Directory was received and is being held in 

Committee files.] 

Point 2, Enclosure A, page 2, of Secretary Shinseki’s report, the 

second paragraph states the numbers and cost of veterans with 

TBI receiving inpatient and outpatient hospital care through public 

and private entities for fiscal year 2009. The average cost indicated 

is approximately $5,800 per veteran. Let me give you a comparison. 

As part of the Michigan Department of Community Health’s TBI 

Grant from HRSA, Michigan’s Medicaid data during the past 4 

years indicates an annual average cost of $28,500 just for services 

with a TBI diagnosis; and an annual average cost of $41,200 for 

services with TBI and non-TBI diagnosis. I believe these numbers 

may be further indication of less than optimal use of outside contractors or, at the very least, not fully using these contractors and 

should be reviewed in greater depth. 

Point 3, Enclosure A, page 4, number 4 discusses ‘‘Programs to 

maximize Veterans’ independence, quality-of-life, and community 

integration, and establish an assisted living pilot.’’ I would recommend to the VA that they immediately explore and/or expand 

such a pilot using the Michigan CARF-accredited providers. In fact, 

the solider whose mother was insistent on the care outside of the 

VA system might be one to include in such a pilot. 

There are other concerns of equal importance that have been 

stated to us by the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans 

Affairs. I urge the Committee to review these as part of my report 

to you in terms of your future actions. 

Again, let me thank the Committee for allowing me to testify. 

Brain injury is an unique injury that has by some been called a 

‘‘life sentence’’ to veterans and to their families who do not receive 

timely—and I want to emphasize that word, ‘‘timely’’—comprehensive, and sufficient cognitive rehabilitative care. 

In wrapping up, let me personally testify to this fact. My father, 

who served with the U.S. Marines during the assault on Guadalcanal, sustained a brain injury that we learned about near the end 

61 

of his life. His undiagnosed brain injury was diagnosed in the late 

1970s, early 1980s as PTSD. The VA’s treatment at that time was 

to overprescribe (my opinion) medication. It was not until there 

was a determination that there was a brain injury and the medication protocol was greatly changed did he ever have the quality-oflife he should have had while raising his family. 

On behalf of today’s veterans, let me plead that we collectively 

do everything in our wisdom and power to prevent their lives having the same fate. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dabbs follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL F. DABBS, PRESIDENT, 

BRAIN INJURY ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN

Let me begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to Senator Akaka and all senators of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs for the opportunity to address you on the issue of our Association’s experience in working with the VA to 

provide brain injury treatment and rehabilitation to veterans. As part of my testimony I will address how effectively state, local and private entities have been engaged by the VA to provide the best access to care and services for veterans with 

TBI. 

Before discussing this matter, allow me to provide you with some basic information about the Brain Injury Association of Michigan and in particular, its Veterans 

Program. The Brain Injury Association of Michigan was incorporated in 1981 as a 

501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by individuals with a brain injury, their families 

and professionals in the field of brain injury to provide support and education to 

one another, as well as to advocate on behalf of persons with a brain injury and 

their families. Additionally, research and prevention programs were primary goals. 

Our Association is one of 44 chartered state affiliates of the Brain Injury Association 

of America. 

In 2007, with funding provided by the Health Resources Services Administration 

to the State of Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) as part of the 

Federal Government Traumatic Brain Injury State Grant program, a portion of 

these funds were sub-contracted to our Association to serve the needs of Michigan 

veterans. Through the guidance of the MDCH’s TBI Grant Services and Prevention 

Council the following goals were established: 

• Goal 1—Create a comprehensive and coordinated state-wide Traumatic Brain 

Injury (TBI) awareness and resource program for veterans, their families and 

friends/co-workers through implementation of a Veteran TBI Awareness Campaign. 

• Goal 2—Create a working relationship with the Michigan based VA VISN 11, 

VA medical centers and subordinate VA health care providers. 

• Goal 3—Survey all TBI health care providers to ascertain their interest in and 

capabilities of providing care for military personnel. 

In order to accomplish these goals, Major Richard Briggs, Jr., USAF (Retired) was 

hired to manage this program and accompanies me today. Though I would be 

pleased to share a more comprehensive report about our Veterans Program accomplishments, I will limit my comments to addressing our activities as it relates to 

Goal 2 and its relevancy to the stated purpose of this hearing. 

Major Briggs developed a working relationship with the Michigan Department of 

Military Affairs and with their assistance was able to create partnerships with the 

Veterans Service Organizations’ Council and the VA County Counselors. Also, because of this relationship with the Department of Military Affairs, he and I were 

invited to meet with the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 11 director 

and staff. As a result of these meetings, Major Briggs was able to meet with the 

four VA Medical Center Directors in Michigan, as well as their respective OEF/OIF 

Coordinators. These meetings afforded Major Briggs the opportunity to share with 

them the unique capabilities for brain injury rehabilitation available in Michigan. 

These capabilities will be explained at further length below as it pertains to the 

Committee’s inquiry. 

Finally, let me share with the Committee that the Brain Injury Association of 

Michigan’s Veterans Program was just recently ranked 21st out of 128 nonprofits 

providing support and service to our veterans in a recently-conducted 2010 Veterans 

Choice Campaign special survey done by Great Nonprofits. 

The information above is provided to serve as credible evidence of our ability to 

address the Committee’s meeting purpose and to demonstrate our efforts to reach 

62 

out and work with the VA and the main organizations that already exist that work 

with the VA, or collaborate closely with it. 

It is my intention with the comments that follow to suggest to the Committee possible approaches or potential solutions to consider as it attempts to ensure that the 

intent of the Federal legislation is in-fact carried forward at the local level. Let me 

be clear that my comments only reflect the experiences of our Association with 

VISN–11 and in particular, the Michigan region of VISN–11, which is the lower peninsula of Michigan. 

In my nearly 18 years as president of the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, 

I have rarely seen as comprehensive a piece of legislation regarding brain injury 

and best practices as what was included in Title XVI, Wounded Warriors Matters 

of the ‘‘National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.’’ In addition, the 

Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010 (S. 1963) also is an excellent piece 

of legislation as it pertains to soldiers who have sustained a Traumatic Brain Injury 

(TBI). In fact, some of the proposed approaches that I will mention address some 

of the provisions (sections 506, 507, 509, and 515) of this bill. 

In Secretary Shinseki’s report to the Committee dated March 23, 2010 indicated 

a number of ‘‘* * * landmark programs and initiatives that VA has implemented 

to provide world class rehabilitation services for Veterans and active duty Servicemembers with TBI * * *’’ It is my opinion that these are valuable and important 

developments; but here are a few concerns I have regarding this. 

1. The first point mentions ‘‘* * * 108 specialized rehabilitation sites across the 

VA medical centers that offer treatment by interdisciplinary teams of rehabilitation 

specialists * * *’’— 

I agree that the VA medical centers do offer such rehabilitation; however the VA 

appears to be limited in providing brain injury rehabilitation. Our experience in 

Michigan however, is that these hospitals are over-burdened and given their patient 

load simply are unable to provide timely care and frequency of care that is required 

for a person who has suffered a TBI. 

Furthermore, as we have witnessed with one of the four VA medical centers in 

Michigan that is located in close proximity to a major hospital medical school, this 

VA medical center only has one doctor who is qualified to administer Neuro-psychological testing. Neuro-psychological testing is critical to the proper and thorough 

screening of soldiers who have a suspected TBI. 

As further evidence of the significance of this problem, let me provide you with 

one of the recommendations given to me by the State of Michigan Department of 

Military Affairs in preparation for this testimony: 

‘‘Access problems and long waits continue to be problematic despite the best 

attempts of the VA.’’ 

One additional point to consider regarding this issue of adequacy of resources— 

it is my understanding that Michigan has over 725,000 Veterans, and only 207,000 

are registered with the VA. Yet as stated above, the current VA medical centers are 

seriously over-whelmed with trying to provide care to those they are servicing. Assuming the Michigan numbers of Veterans and the Veterans who are registered 

with the VA are reflective of other states, this would dictate that the VA absolutely 

must aggressively seek outside contractors to assist them with providing care to our 

Veterans. Simply put, the VA must use its financial resources to contract with public and private partners to provide care and not spend these funds trying to build 

facilities and staff them. I implore this Committee and the VA to immediately take 

action on this issue. Veterans who have a TBI need treatment now—not in a few 

years when a few more facilities might be operational. Does it even seem reasonable 

to think that there are sufficient funds to build enough facilities in Michigan to 

meet the long-term care needs of Veterans with TBI, if the numbers above are correct; much less the rest of U.S.? 

2. The second point indicates that ‘‘TBI screening and evaluation program to ensure that Veterans with TBI are identified and receive appropriate treatment for 

their conditions’’—though this has been implemented, the current assessment that 

I believe is being referred to—a four question survey—is not adequate. Another one 

of the State of Michigan Department of Military Affairs recommendations states: 

‘‘TBI continues to be missed when it co-occurs with other disorders. Soldiers 

who are being diagnosed with disorders such as Bipolar Disorder and PTSD 

should be universally screened for TBI because of the similarities in their 

presentation. Likewise all soldier receiving VA disability for hearing loss or 

Tinnitus (ear ringing) should have mandated TBI screen.’’ 

3. Enclosure A, Page 2 notes that ‘‘* * * VA directed medical facilities to identify 

public and private entities within their catchment area that have expertise in 

63 

neurobehavioral rehabilitation and recovery programs for TBI, and to ensure that 

referrals for services are made seamlessly when necessary.’’ A similar point is made 

in S. 1963, Section 507. To date in Michigan, there have been only three such referrals according to the VISN–11 Cooperative TBI Agreements Patient Tracking FY 

2009. One of these was due to a mother’s insistence that such care be provided to 

her son. 

This is a critical point of my testimony. For over 37 years, Michigan, due to its 

unique automobile no-fault insurance system, provides comprehensive lifetime care 

for those sustaining injuries in an automobile crash in Michigan. The care provided 

is unique to each person and provides cognitive rehabilitation care. As a result, 

there are more brain injury rehabilitation providers than any other state in the U.S. 

I have provided a chart that we created as an attachment to this testimony. This 

information was taken directly from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) Web site that indicates all certified brain injury providers in 

the United States. Let me give you just a couple of the more salient points. There 

are 9 brain injury residential rehabilitation providers with 78 facilities in Michigan—this is 24% of the total in the U.S. Michigan has 8 brain injury home and community-based rehabilitation providers with 16 facilities in Michigan—this is 33% of 

the total in the U.S. Brain Injury outpatient rehabilitation providers in Michigan 

number 12 with 22 facilities, which represent 15% of similar providers in the Nation. And finally, there are six providers with 12 facilities, which is 24% of the total 

in the U.S. 

Again, these are CARF accredited providers and represent only a fraction of similar program providers within Michigan who are not certified. A copy of the Brain 

Injury Association of Michigan’s Directory of Facilities and Services will be provided 

to the Committee’s staff to provide you with an idea of just how extensive these resources are throughout Michigan. All of these providers are spread across Michigan, 

though the preponderance are located in or near the larger urban areas of the state. 

Attached is a Michigan map with just the CARF accredited facilities. 

4. Enclosure A, page 2, second paragraph also states the numbers of Veterans 

with TBI receiving inpatient and outpatient hospital care through public and private entities for FY 2009. The average cost per Veteran would be $5,800. 

By way of comparison, as part of the MDCH TBI Grant from HRSA, Michigan 

has done an extensive analysis of its Medicaid Data for the past 10 years. During 

the past four years, our analysis of a subset of TBI cases who receive Medicaid provide us a the cleanest estimate of cost (that is, Medicaid cases who had no other 

insurance, were not in Medicaid prior to their TBI hospitalization, had Medicaid eligibility for at least a year after the TBI hospitalization and had Fee For Service 

cost data) showed the following: 

> Annual average cost of $28,539 just for services with a TBI diagnosis. 

> Annual average cost of $41,243 for services with TBI and non-TBI diagnosis. 

An issue to consider regarding this data is that I believe that Medicaid is more 

restrictive of services than would be available through the VA. 

5. Enclosure A, page 4, #4 discusses ‘‘Programs to maximize Veterans’ independence, quality of life, and community integration, and establish an assisted living 

pilot.’’ I believe this program could have been expedited had the VA utilized the resources available in Michigan. I would encourage the Committee to recommend to 

the VA that they immediately explore and/or expand such a pilot utilizing the CARF 

accredited providers that I have mentioned above. In fact, the solider mentioned 

above whose mother was insistent on the care outside of the VA system might be 

one to include in such a pilot. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Brain Injury Association of Michigan would readily welcome the opportunity 

to partner with the Veterans Administration to work expeditiously to implement the 

policy directives and guidance that Congress and the VA have directed. With the 

collaboration of the partners that I indicated in the beginning of this testimony, I 

believe that we can effectively assist with demonstrating how the ‘‘new’’ VA can operate in the 21st Century to meet its congressionally mandated responsibility of providing care to our Nation’s Veterans. 

1. Create a pilot study in Michigan that utilizes the extensive continuum of care 

of CARF accredited brain injury rehabilitation providers. The goal of such a pilot 

would be to validate Secretary Shinseki’s desire for a seamless system of care between VA and private or public partners. Additionally, its greatest value would be 

to ensure the Veteran is receiving the most comprehensive program of brain injury 

rehabilitation that would give them the greatest opportunity to reintegrate into the 

community. 

64 

2. Review current legislation and possibly creating additional legislation as required creating a program that would address some of the following concerns (this 

is not comprehensive, simply a starting point): 

– Automatically enroll a soldier into the VA upon discharge from active duty; 

– Improved TBI screening; 

– Comprehensive case-management; 

– Increased educational offerings and support regarding their loved-ones who 

have a TBI pertaining to their challenges and limitations; 

– Realization of ‘‘seamless transitions’’ and an interdisciplinary approach between health care providers across disciplines to assure that the Veterans challenges is not navigation through bureaucracy or red tape. 

3. The VA should undertake a study of medical specialties that they have shortages of and what opportunities exist in their region to ensure that more timely care 

is rendered to Veterans who have sustained a TBI. 

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, let me again express my sincere thanks to the Committee for allowing me to testify. Brain injury is an unique injury that can be a ‘‘life-sentence’’ as 

one radio personality once called it. It can be a needless life-sentence to the Veteran 

who does not receive timely, comprehensive and sufficient rehabilitative care. I 

would also suggest that it is a life-sentence for their loved ones. It impacts the family and the community. I can personally testify to this fact as my father who served 

with the U.S. Marines during the assault on Guadalcanal sustained a brain injury 

that we learned about near the end of his life. His undiagnosed brain injury was 

diagnosed in the late 1970’s, early 1980’s as PTSD. The VA’s treatment at the time 

was to over-prescribe (my opinion) medication. It wasn’t until there was a determination that there was brain injury and the medication protocol was greatly 

changed did he ever have the quality of life; he should have had while raising his 

family. On behalf of today’s Veterans let me plead that we collectively do everything 

in our wisdom and power to prevent their lives having the same fate. 

Attachments: 

1. CARF Statistics Table for Michigan 

2. State of Michigan map identifying CARF accredited providers 

65 

ATTACHMENT 1—CARF STATISTICS TABLE FOR MICHIGAN


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ATTACHMENT 2—STATE OF MICHIGAN MAPS IDENTIFYING CARF ACCREDITED

PROVIDERS


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RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY SENATOR DANIEL K. AKAKA

TO MICHAEL F. DABBS, PRESIDENT, BRAIN INJURY ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN

Question 1. You stated that you have concerns with the current TBI screening 

tool. Concerns have also been expressed about the clinical validity of this tool. 

Please specifically identify your reservations in addition to possible ways to improve 

the tool. 

Response. I do not have expert knowledge or training regarding TBI screening 

tools for me to be able to provide specific concerns or more importantly about how 

it can be improved. However, let me share these observations regarding the current 

tool (I am referring to the VA’s TBI Pre-screening Tool—four questions evaluation 

tool). First, it does not require much experience or knowledge to recognize that these 

limited and broad questions are inadequate at best. These questions would appear 

to disproportionately identify the number of soldiers, which may lead to unnecessarily overloading the medical systems of the DOD and VA. 

Second, though it may not be intended by the military command, we have heard 

many anecdotal comments from soldiers who believed responding affirmatively to 


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any of the questions on this tool would jeopardize their career. I have no potential 

solutions regarding this; however, this may be one of the most difficult and pressing 

issues requiring attention. 

Third, it is puzzling as to why this tool was developed when there has been a 

great deal of research into various concussion tools. I certainly do not know all of 

the details in the development of this tool and at this point it is meaningless to discuss; other than to realize that in the future, greater effort should be made to seek 

out and use the state-of-the-art resources available and expend the effort to improve 

them. 

Fourth, as directed by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act for pre and 

post-deployment testing, as well as in the combat theater testing, this directive does 

not appear to have been applied, or at least not fully to National Guard soldiers— 

as indicated by experiences in Michigan. This would create problems for soldiers, 

whose brain injury is not addressed as quickly as possible that could lead to problems with their family, holding a job, substance abuse and others. Additionally, it 

further exacerbates issues with the soldier that the VA must contend with. 

Question 2. Cooperation with the private sector is important to expand access to 

care. However, veterans are a unique population. What steps has your organization, 

or other private entities with which you may be familiar, taken to become more ‘‘culturally literate’’ with respect to servicemembers and veterans? 

Response. In the first sentence, it is stated that ‘‘Cooperation with the private sector is important * * *’’ with which I totally agree. Unfortunately, as I indicated in 

my testimony this has not been borne out by execution of this policy. Michigan’s 

wealth of TBI rehabilitation continuum of care services has not been effectively used 

despite the relationships we have established with VISN–11 and the four VA medical centers. Furthermore, I believe in the testimony that I witnessed at the hearing 

that indicated that the VA was going to have a pilot of less than 12 veterans using 

services is an embarrassment. Such a limited number when compared to the thousands requiring services should be seen as unacceptable. In my judgment, if there 

were 12 sent to Michigan rehab facilities, I would see it as unacceptable. Furthermore, why is it that a pilot is only now being done—nearly 10 years since the start 

of the conflict? 

The poly-trauma system that was created, I believe was an excellent, well-conceived approach to dealing with brain injuries and other trauma. What has not been 

dealt with effectively is the long-term rehabilitative care necessary. Appointments 

at a VA Medical Center every couple of months (or even longer) is woefully inadequate to providing cognitive rehabilitation. Again, let me urge that the over 35 

year history of brain injury rehabilitation and expansive network of care in Michigan be utilized, to demonstrate what can be done in assisting a soldier recover. 

In regards to our Association’s being ‘‘cultural literate’’ it is for this very reason 

why Richard Briggs, Major, USAF (Retired) was hired. As a former U.S. Army Captain, I was keenly aware of the need to hire an individual with a military background to work on this issue. It was clear to me that the individual managing the 

Association’s efforts with veterans must understand the chain of command, military 

terminology, and be able to relate to those in the military. 

Unfortunately as mentioned above, there has been nearly no interaction with 

other private facilities by the VA in the State of Michigan; thus, the military literacy issue has not been an issue to date. However, we completely agree that this 

will be a key component in the development of any relationships. We pledge our efforts to ensure that any such facility receives training about the military culture to 

ensure they can provide effective rehabilitation. 

Finally, Major Briggs has worked with numerous public and private entities on 

recreational activities for soldiers. As part of those efforts, Major Briggs has ensured 

that there is an understanding and respect for the military culture, which has won 

him many words of praise from participants. Most notable was a comment following 

a recent fishing event from a Viet Nam era veteran who commented that seeing all 

of the American and Service flags flying along the pier, as well as people cheering 

and waving made him feel that for the first time since he returned from Viet Nam, 

he was finally welcomed home! 

Question 3. Does your organization, or others with which you are familiar, use 

tele-health technologies to provide care and services to individuals with TBI? 

Response. Our Association has not utilized nor has there been a need for telehealth technologies. However, because of comments we have received from many of 

the soldiers who desire support but do not wish that support to be in a typical support group environment, we will be introducing in the third quarter of the calendar 

year a telephonic support group. This will enable a veteran to remain in their home 

(without the need to travel) and know that at a prescribed time they can meet with 

69 

other veterans via phone (possibly video in the future) to receive support and provide support. 

Included with my response, I am including an outline of the TBI Resource Optimization Center’s Brain Injury Navigator, which is being piloted at the current time. 

As shown, the purpose is to assist a soldier or their family with identifying needed 

services in or near where they live. 

CONCLUSION

Once again, I deeply appreciate the opportunity to address the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and to respond to these questions. Senator Akaka asked 

a very significant question during the Question and Answer period at the Hearing, 

which I did not feel I responded to in an adequate manner. In essence, the question 

was, is the VA doing a more effective job treating brain injury today than they were 

two or three years ago. In considering this question during the past few weeks, I 

would respond that Congress has enacted cutting edge laws and guidance to address 

the needs of veterans with a Traumatic Brain Injury. Thus, there has been an effort 

made to improve care—or, said another way, when there was effectively nothing to 

begin with, anything is better. 

However, the execution of these laws and policies remains less than adequate and 

therein is the problem that is creating the distrust, mistrust and futility being experienced by many veterans. The VA so jealously guards its Congressional mandated 

responsibility to care for our veterans; however, the sheer numbers of veterans and 

the limited number of VA medical facilities simply prohibit the VA from being able 

to carry out this responsibility properly or fully. I do not believe that adequate funds 

can be appropriated to the VA to build the needed facilities, staff them and operate 

them. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely there can ever be sufficient facilities so as 

to make them convenient to where veterans live. Thus, a new paradigm must be 

used—namely contracting with private providers and the VA effectively monitoring 

the delivery of care. 

Finally, allow me to reiterate my comment pertaining to TRICARE and its rules, 

which effectively sets up the VA to not be as effective as it could be in treating a 

veteran with a brain injury. It is my understanding that TRICARE currently operates using Medicare rules. Medicare rules do not address cognitive rehabilitation or 

long-term rehabilitative care and yet this is the essence to the continuum of care 

needs of the veteran. Because cognitive rehabilitation is not provided immediately 

following the time of injury, once the soldier leaves the active military and must 

use the VA system, significant time has elapsed. This dramatically decreases the opportunity for the soldier to recover skills both cognitively and emotionally that may 

have been impaired by their Traumatic Brain Injury. 

Changing the Medicare Rules to expand coverage to cognitive rehabilitation could 

be one of the quickest and most effective changes to providing comprehensive brain 

injury rehabilitation to soldiers, which would give them a greater opportunity to return to the quality of life they enjoyed prior to their military duty. I believe it would 

also lessen the demands for brain injury rehabilitation on the VA system. 

Enclosure: TBI-ROC Brain Injury Navigator 

70 

ENCLOSURE—TBI-ROC BRAIN INJURY NAVIGATOR


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Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Dabbs. 

And now we will receive the statement of Dr. LaPlaca. 


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STATEMENT OF MICHELLE C. LAPLACA, PH.D., ASSOCIATE 

PROFESSOR, WALLACE H. COULTER DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND EMORY UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF BIOENGINEERING AND BIOSCIENCE, LABORATORY OF NEUROENGINEERING, ATLANTA, GA 

Ms. LAPLACA. Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chairman and 

the Committee, for the opportunity to share my thoughts and experience from a professor and a researcher’s point of view on the current state of Traumatic Brain Injury research, diagnosis, and treatment. 

We have heard a lot about transitioning between DOD and Veterans Affiars. What I am going to be discussing is a transition that 

occurs before then in terms of getting the latest research into the 

clinic and to our warfighters and our veterans in a timely manner. 

My primary research interests, as Senator Isakson pointed out, 

are in Traumatic Brain Injury. I studied biomechanics as well as 

acute mechanisms and different treatments. 

I first became interested in the brain when I took a research assistant position at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research as a 

sophomore in college. The complexity of the brain is what intrigued 

me then and what still drives my enthusiasm today over 20 years 

later. Since that time, we have passed what NIH termed the ‘‘Decade of the Brain,’’ entered a new century and several military conflicts which have exposed new war-related health care issues. 

The advent of new protective materials, as has been noted, has 

improved survivability, and that is a wonderful thing. I commend 

the biomaterials and the engineer folks who developed those protective mechanisms. But they have left us with more injured 

warfighters and more disabled veterans than ever before to care 

for. So I will highlight some of the advances, some of which have 

already been noted. I will be brief. 

Collectively, TBI researchers—and that is in military labs as well 

as academic labs—have uncovered numerous cell pathways over 

the past few decades that lead to cell damage. Cells can be compromised in different ways. They can be injured from both what we 

are calling a traditional brain injury—a contusion—and from a 

blast. In both cases, the brain tissue itself undergoes deformation, 

although blasts produce that deformation at a much higher frequency. We need to learn what we can from existing models of 

brain injury because they do tell us things that blast injury models 

have yet to uncover. 

We have refocused attention on damaged receptors, membranes, 

and white matter, all of which affect cell communication and lead 

to ultimate disabled function. 

Inflammation, vascular damage, and edema are all events that 

have multiple components to them and are being revisited by scientists. How exactly these are related to each other and how they 

can be targeted for therapeutic intervention, however, is still not 

well understood. 

Genomics and proteomics—techniques where large numbers of 

genes and proteins can be screened—offer an enormous opportunity, also an enormous amount of information that must be analyzed using very sophisticated models. A repository of both experiVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
74 

mental and clinical data would provide data sets to researchers to 

drive validation studies and generate new directions of research 

and potential treatments. 

As of today, we have no FDA-approved treatments for TBI itself. 

Most clinical interventions will stabilize symptoms, such as reducing intracranial pressure, and then the warfighter, the TBI patient 

goes on to rehabilitation and post-care. Some of the reasons for 

that are divided into four broad categories. 

One, the heterogeneity. No two Traumatic Brain Injuries are 

alike. We heard about polytrauma that is now being appreciated. 

We do not model polytrauma in the lab. This is a huge gap in research. 

Variables like age, underlying health, genetic make-up, and environment factors all affect injury outcome. One size does not fit all 

in terms of treatment or rehabilitation, and personalized care must 

be sought. 

Complexity is the number 2 reason for no treatments. Injury 

mechanisms are poorly understood and leave the question as when 

to intervene and how to intervene. Combination therapies are 

likely. 

Diagnosis is different and crude due to the heterogeneity and the 

complexity I just discussed, as well as the clinical classification systems. New diagnostic tools such as biomarkers and imaging must 

be worked into this classification system. There are poor clinical 

translation avenues. Most of the clinical trials are funded by industry; most researchers do not know how to translate their successful 

results. Clinical trials must be done on sound science, yet many of 

the successful experimental results are never tested in the pre-clinical setting. 

Last, some of the challenges that were faced as a result of this: 

continued and increased collaboration between academic, medical, 

and military training facilities in terms of medical care, TBI awareness and treatment strategies; programs that fund pre-clinical experiments; better diagnostic and uniform registries across the country. These need to be developed in parallel with point-of-care technologies and diagnostics. 

More coordination is needed between basic and clinical research. 

One of the most underutilized laboratories is the clinic itself. Systems engineering and informatics approach to handle the vast 

amounts of data will be needed to implement and decipher all of 

these complex data sets. And continued dissemination of findings 

and dialog among educators and the clinic and the VA is required. 

Clinical trials must be fast-tracked and have uniform injury 

management guidelines, as well as deal with HIPAA and IRB compliance. These are major hurdles in the current system. 

So, in closing, the fields of neurotrauma and trauma medicine 

are at a very exciting crossroads, and I thank the Committee for 

providing me the opportunity to share my thoughts on this. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. LaPlaca follows:] 

75 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHELLE C. LAPLACA, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, 

WALLACE H. COULTER DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND EMORY UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF BIOENGINEERING

AND BIOSCIENCE, LABORATORY OF NEUROENGINEERING

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss the Department of Veterans’ Affairs 

(VA) efforts to address the progress in Traumatic Brain Injury research, diagnosis, 

and treatment as it relates to academia-VA collaborations and ultimate clinical implementation. 

PROGRESS THAT HAS BEEN MADE IN UNDERSTANDING, DIAGNOSING, AND TREATING

TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (TBI)

The annual incidence of TBI in the US is estimated at 1.5 million, and brain injury remains a major cause of long-term disability or death. Additionally, the yearly 

economic burden exceeds $60 billion, which does not include the social and emotional toll on patients, families, and the community. The understanding of TBI 

mechanisms has increased tremendously over the past 30 years, although this 

progress in scientific findings has not paralleled improvements in diagnosing and 

treatments for brain injured patients. Scientists have better tools to investigate cellular mechanisms of injury (i.e. what happens to the cells of the brain when they 

are injured) due to general advancements in genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry. Engineers use computers with much more computing power than previous generations. Working at the micro- and nano-levels, while unimaginable 20 

years ago, is becoming commonplace at top research universities. Imaging techniques and processing capabilities has advanced quite rapidly, however, most hospitals do not have access to trained personnel, even IF they can afford the imaging 

equipment. These are just a few examples underlying improvements in TBI research 

and treatment. 

Understanding TBI 

The devastating events that surround a TBI are associated not only with the 

physical deformation of the brain, but also with secondary complications (such as 

inflammation, altered cellular signaling, and changes in gene expression—all of 

which affect cell function, organ function, and overall functional ability of the 

wounded). It is worthy to note that the high incidence of blast-related brain injuries 

in recent and ongoing US military operations has caused engineers and scientists 

to reconsider some of the animal models being used to study blast injury versus injury types that commonly occur in the US civilian population. Specifically, blast injuries occur at a much higher frequency than even motor vehicle accidents. The 

questions remain as to whether we can treat the basic mechanisms, learned over 

the past several decades, as the same in both populations. In addition, the competition among researchers—academic and military alike—in developing these models 

has been overwhelming and very unlike the advent of animal models developed in 

the 1980’s and 1990’s for concussive and diffuse brain injury. 

In both humans and animal models, complications that result from the primary 

insult (blast, head acceleration, or impact) can lead to cell death and progressive 

neurodegeneration, accompanied by prolonged or permanent loss of sensory, motor, 

and/or cognitive function. In order to understand the physical tolerance of neurons 

to traumatic insults, engineers and neuroscientists have attempted to reproduce the 

biomechanical environment during a traumatic event using cell, animal, and computer modeling. This approach allows one to begin to unravel the underlying injury 

mechanisms that lead to cell dysfunction and death as a function of input physics. 

To date, several cellular events have been identified that contribute to damage, such 

as cell membrane damage, imbalance of ions, abnormal release and deployment of 

normally controlled molecules, neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes. However, how these events relate to each other and how they can be targeted for therapeutic intervention are not well understood. 

Diagnosing TBI 

In October, 2007, the National Institute of NeurologicalDisorders and Stroke, with 

support from the Brain Injury Association of America, the Defense and Veterans 

Brain Injury Center, and the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research, convened a workshop to outline the steps needed to develop a reliable, efficient and valid classification system for TBI that could be used to link specific patterns of brain and neurovascular injury with appropriate therapeutic interventions. 

The primary system is the Glascow coma scale, as well as injury type, injury severity, pathoanatomy, and pathophysiology. It was agreed that compliant data sharing, 

76 

uniform diagnostic criteria, and sophisticated modeling (prognostic modeling, 

informatics-based analyses, and more personalized diagnostics) are reasonable approaches to better stratifying patients. Success of the proposed changes, however, 

will require large center trials, integration of systems informatics to the neurotrauma field, and cooperation between academic and VA researchers. 

On the advent of diagnostic techniques are biomarkers. Biomarkers are substances released in to the blood stream at high levels that may be associated with 

a particular type of lesion/region affected. The process is analogous to the blood tests 

given to help diagnosis heart attack severity. 

Treating TBI—Current Clinical Therapies 

Unfortunately, the current clinical treatments for TBI are very limited. Emergency care primarily addresses the acute physiological responses (e.g., controlling 

elevations in intracranial pressure and cerebral perfusion pressure) and long-term 

therapies are largely palliative measures. A large number of pharmacological therapies have gone to clinical trials for TBI; however, such treatments either focus on 

a single signaling cascade or the target spectrum has collateral detrimental effects 

systemically and have failed in clinical trials. As there are currently no FDA-approved therapeutic interventions for the treatment of TBI, developing efficacious 

treatment strategies remains an important research priority. TBI initiates an abundant number of highly complex molecular signaling pathways; thus, a multifaceted 

therapy is required to attenuate the degenerating injury environment. Other current 

clinical trials include therapies aimed at hindering the inflammatory response and 

provide neuroprotective effects, such as acute hypothermia (Adelson et al. 2005; Davies 2005), and early administration of erythropoietin (Grasso et al. 2007), progesterone (Wright et al. 2005), and citicoline (Calatayud Maldonado et al. 1991). 

Moreover, clinical trials are also evaluating pharmaceutical therapies for post-TBI 

behavioral issues, such as depression, irritation, and aggression. Sertraline, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, is one example of this treatment that addresses 

behavioral disorders that persist after a TBI (Fann et al. 2001; Zafonte et al. 2002). 

Each of these treatment modalities target specific events that occur after injury. Indeed, recent clinical advances using combination therapy, such as Highly Active 

Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) to treat AIDS or in metastatic breast cancer, lend 

credence to this approach. Combination therapies for TBI is a relatively new approach only recently gaining acceptance. Their discovery may significantly shift clinical practice to target the underlying pathology rather than relying on surgical or 

symptomatic (i.e. intracranial pressure) management. 

Given the complex and dynamic injury environment and interactions among secondary injury mechanisms, it is likely, if not required, that multiple agents will be 

needed to provide neuroprotection after TBI. Neuroprotection refers to the ability to 

SAVE cells. Repair and regeneration cannot provide their maximal benefit if the environment of the injured brain is not stabilized and receptive to regeneration. However, testing drug combinations is challenging given the combinatorial explosion of 

formulations. A traditional study may choose to test only two drugs, but such a 

strategy could easily miss more effective combinations and is essentially a fishingexpedition in a very tiny bucket. As an alternative, we have proposes a highly systematic, rigorous statistical approach to sample from a larger pool of literaturebased candidates, whereby providing predictive capability for evaluation in vivo, 

streamlining the route to pre-clinical and clinical trials. The following categories of 

secondary damage have been selected, based on a wide literature search: 1) acute 

damage and excitotoxicity, 2) free radical damage and compromised energetics, and 

3) inflammation. This is an example of a research approach that will operate out 

of the box and will hopefully be an example for others to follow on the path to 

translational discovery in neurotrauma. For example, novel combinations of FDAapproved drugs may be discovered, which could be fast-tracked into the clinic. These 

results will require non-biased dissemination, as well as a robust analysis platform. 

Summarizing some of the top reasons why we don’t have more options to treat 

TBI highlights the complexity faced and underlines the need for more cooperation 

and collaboration: 

1) Heterogeneity of injuries between patients and within the brain means that one 

size will not fit all patients in terms of treatment or rehabilitation; 

2) Injury mechanisms are poorly understood, due to the complexity of the brain 

microenvironment; 

3) TBI changes over time (primary versus secondary mechanisms; propensity to 

sudden onset neurodegenerative disease; complication with aging and other health 

issues), leaving the question as to when to intervene and how often; 

77 

4) Polytrauma, or trauma to many bodily systems (physiological and psychological), is commonplace, but not well studied, complicating research findings, diagnosis and treatment 

5) The classification system (GCS and experimental) and the diagnosis systems 

are variable and crude; 

6) No effective treatments exist clinically and we (all researchers and clinicians) 

need better avenues for collaboration and clinical translation; 

7) It is unclear what are the right treatment target(s) to focus on? For example, 

is it neuroprotection versus repair versus regeneration versus replacement? 

EXPERIENCE IN COLLABORATING WITH VA ON TBI RESEARCH AND

IMPLEMENTATION OF RESEARCH FINDINGS

I have limited experience collaborating with the VA in Atlanta. The Atlanta 

VAMC Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence has recently undergone some restructuring and this will prompt reorganization and/or priorities shifting. The investigator and clinical staff have been extremely supportive and encouraging in navigating the system in order to find the right collaborators and passing along funding 

opportunities. I plan to submit to the fall cycle and in parallel seek a partial appointment at the VA. In addition to these plans, the Veterans’ Innovation Center 

(VIC) (www.hinri.com) is an excellent example of local enthusiasm and timeliness. 

I commend Senator Isakson for his support of this initiative. 

My impression is that the VA scientists are eager to collaborate with academic 

institutions and vis versa. There are several issues that hinder this process. The VA 

has a highly specialized and secured computer network. Virtual, secure data rooms 

may be a solution to the difficulty in communication and data sharing. There are 

different types of bureaucracy, but each is poorly understood by the other party. 

Federal money for TBI research seems to be in silos, making cross-institutional 

and cross-agency collaboration difficult. It is my perception that TBI research finding within the Department of Defense is not shared with non-military institutions 

and vis versa, unless published in the public domain. The notion that upper-level 

review committees will match qualified grant applicants to appropriate researchers 

within military research institutions is nice in theory, but the most successful collaborations come from the ground up, not top-down. Conferences and other venues 

for data sharing need to include both civilian and military research sharing. Without this, the relationships will not develop and the collaboration success will move 

at a snail’s pace. 

CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE

Below are a summary of challenges that face researchers and clinicians, together 

with suggestions for improvement: 

1) Cooperation between academic, medical, and military training facilities in 

terms of TBI awareness and care; 

2) Better diagnostics—biomarkers—imaging—uniform registries across Level 1 

Trauma Centers; 

3) Platforms for deploying small, inexpensive diagnostic ‘‘kits’’ to smaller hospitals 

and portable/temporary medical units—i.e. no large equipment, easy steps, stable at 

a range of environment conditions; 

4) Many more and uniformed programs to filter research findings in an unbiased 

manner. In other words, beyond open access journals, the mere volume of scientific 

papers published limits investigators. Government databases with secure access 

that are professional designed to maximize dissemination and interpretation of published work; 

5) Programs that encourage and fund pre-clinical experiments with large numbers 

of interventions (pharmaceuticals, biologics) and in combinations that provide widespread screening, rather that narrow investigations that don’t take into consideration the complexity of TBI; 

6) Cross-agency collaborative funding mechanisms designed for data sharing, uniform financial and administrative responsibility, and shared resources; 

7) Proactive involvement of informatics and information science to consolidate and 

analyze large and diverse data sets from basic lab studies to pre-clinical studies to 

clinical trials. The advent of traumanomics—to follow along with the ‘‘—omic’’ nomenclature adopted in the 21st Century—is relatively new, but yet few investigators 

understand or appreciate the necessity to use unbiased statistical and multilevel 

modeling. Freely providing data to such ‘‘number crunching’’ efforts goes against the 

culture of publications; 

8) Open dissemination of findings, including unpublished data and protocols; 

78 

9) Open dialog among educators, policymakers, clinical leadership, and research 

directors. 

In closing, the fields of neurotrauma and trauma medicine are at a very exciting 

crossroads. We have learned so much about injury mechanisms and are beginning 

to appreciate the complexity and wide variety of pathologies associated with TBI. 

Successful implementation of the findings is possible, providing cooperation is focused on the patient or warfighter/veteran. I thank the Committee for providing me 

the opportunity to share my experience and recommendations on TBI with respect 

to veteran’s healthcare. 

RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA TO

MICHELLE C. LAPLACA, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, WALLACE H. COULTER DE- PARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Question 1. Please elaborate on the long-term effects of adopting combination 

therapies, in terms of improving treatment and management of TBI. 

Response. The long-term effects of adopting combination therapies is unknown, 

however, this is true of many treatment in clinical practice today. The FDA has a 

responsibility to enforce regulations for any therapy in which the risks are minimal 

compared to the potential benefits. Furthermore, even if more than one drug is 

given (the definition of a combination therapy in the context of the hearing discussion), the effects rely on the target(s), the duration of action, and the interaction 

with other physiological systems. For example, one drug may act on many targets 

and may be beneficial, while two drugs—each with a narrow function—may affect 

two specific targets, and not have the ‘‘magnitude’’ of effects that the single drug 

has. Therefore, the challenge is similar that that of translating a single drug to market, with the additional burden of dosing for each individual drug and the potential 

drug interactions at each dose that may affect ultimate function (in other words, a 

more complex pharmacokinetics analysis). 

In the best case, the long-term effects of combination therapies are that overall 

function is improved and therefore, fewer complications arise, such as continued 

memory loss. The potential danger is that an acute therapy—whether a single agent 

or combination—may result in side effects that are detrimental, such as saving cells 

that are dysfunctional. The reality is somewhere in between these extremes. Many 

of the drugs that are being considered pre-clinically and clinically are aimed at protecting cells and halting the progression of tissue damage. The premise here is that 

saving cells in the early period will preserve nerve function within the brain and 

reduce aberrant nervous system control of systems such as motor, sensory, cardiovascular, renal, etc. The benefit of most drugs under consideration for early intervention is that they are ‘‘short-acting’’, meaning that long-term side effects are unlikely. The ‘‘window’’ of delivery is very important, however, since we want to have 

available interventions that will be effective past the acute period. It is generally 

thought that the more delayed a neuroprotective agent is given the less effect it will 

have (presumably since more cells are dead by then and there are less that need 

to be ‘‘rescued’’), but this is a subject that deserves further study. A potential benefit 

of the ‘‘combination approach’’ is that different drugs or drug combinations could be 

given at different times, depending on variables such as time since injury, age, other 

health issues, responsiveness to a particular therapy, and other individual factors. 

In the case of delayed treatment (days, weeks, months post-injury), a neuroprotective approach may be mute, as cell death, although ongoing, has slowed. Here combinations of drugs that augment residual function and/or encourage regeneration 

are possible, as is the combination of drug therapy with occupational and other rehabilitative interventions. 

In summary, combination therapy is an avenue worthy of investigation, given that 

TBI is a complex disorder, and it is unlikely that there will be a ‘‘magic bullet’’ that 

corresponds to a single treatment. Given the complexity of TBI and of the pharmacology involved in combining drugs with different (or overlapping) mechanisms of action, it is necessary to approach the study of such approaches with rational studies 

and analyses. 

See attached article summarizing the combination therapy approach for TBI. 

Marguiles et al. Combination Therapies for Traumatic Brain Injury: Prospective 

Considerations Journal of Neurotrauma; Vol 26: 925–939, June 2009. (Attachment 1) 

Question 2. Is there a benefit to continuing rehabilitation therapy, with the goal 

of maintaining a current level of functioning, for those with severe TBI for whom 

no further gains in functioning are expected? 

Response. Yes, there may be benefit for continued rehabilitation therapy even is 

no further gains are expected. As an individual ages, loss of function may become 

79 

more pronounced, and therefore a cessation of therapy could cause rapid decline. 

Even if no gains in functioning are expected, the maintenance of function is crucial 

for day-to-day living, and will reduce caregiver burden and additional long-term 

health decline. If those with severe TBI are not mobile and cannot carryout routine 

hygiene care, however, then continued rehabilitation in a VA hospital or nursing 

home setting may not benefit the individual. The quality of life should be considered 

for those who are not on life support, but are still bed- or home-bound. In addition 

to routine care to avoid infections (e.g., weight shifting, turning to avoid bed ulcers, 

etc.) and blood clots (e.g., passive leg and trunk movement), other types of therapy 

should be considered. Sensory stimuli such as touch (e.g., massage, grooming), 

sound and visual therapy, and companionship can have beneficial effects on psychological states as well as physiological wellness. Home therapies that are simplified 

version of in-patient rehabilitation warrant study, as there is cost savings for the 

VA system in both short term patient satisfaction and long-term health costs and 

needs. And, while the chance for recovery of function declines with age and with 

time from the original injury, it is not impossible. Intensive early therapy (according 

to clinical guidelines for appropriate delay from time of injury and rest) should be 

considered for motor, sensory, and cognitive rehabilitation. An effort to treat the entire TBI patient and not just the symptom(s), throughout a person’s life, will be the 

most beneficial approach. 

See attached article for opinion about therapies for TBI. There is a section about 

the use of rehabilitation as a treatment (p. 15, section 7.7). Xiong et al. Emerging 

treatments for Traumatic Brain Injury. Expert Opin Emerg Drugs.; Vol 14 (issue 1): 

67–84, March 2009. (Attachment 2) 

Question 3. In her testimony, Mrs. Bohlinger discussed the importance of brain 

imaging to improve the accuracy of TBI screening. From your perspective, what new 

imaging technologies are being developed or should be adopted by VA? 

Response. Brain imaging advances have been made in the past decade that can 

contribute to TBI screening, diagnosis, and outcome monitoring. Although brain imaging is beyond my area of expertise, I am aware that diffusion tensor imaging (or 

DTI) is an improvement over other methods in detecting edema as well as some 

structural defects. I believe that in the current form, DTI (or other imaging techniques) will be best used for diagnosis and outcome monitoring, not screening per 

se. It is currently too expensive for screening and the availability is limited. Following further evaluation and validation of imaging as an effective diagnostic tool, 

portable versions should be further developed and deployed in the military and to 

facilities that do not have the space or money to install large imaging equipment. 

The rationale is that something is better than nothing, but that the utility of imaging, either alone or with other diagnostic tools, has to be systemically and rigorously 

tested. It is my understanding that many facilities have expensive imaging equipment, but do not have trained personnel. There is a danger in non-experts interpreting clinical imaging scans. Therefore, a large need exists for more training, as 

well as standardized protocols before imaging can be routinely used on a widespread 

basis. There are several centers across the country that have the expertise in TBI 

imaging (for example, UCLA, Univ. Pennsylvania, among others). Standard of care 

in Level 1 Trauma Centers should be established, followed by training in other Centers with existing equipment. See the attached article for further comments on the 

classification of TBI, which include imaging as a potential future tool. 

See the attached review article for more about the future of imaging (and other 

issues) for TBI. Saatman et al., Classification of Traumatic Brain Injury for Targeted Therapies. Journal of Neurotrauma Vol 25, p. 719–738, July 2008. (Attachment 3) 

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Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Dr. LaPlaca. 

This question is for all the witnesses. You can answer it in one 

word or a brief comment. It is my view that VA care for TBI has 

dramatically improved since the start of the war in Iraq. My simple 

question to you is: Do you share that view? 

[Ms. Bohlinger nodding affirmatively.] 


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Chairman AKAKA. Ms. Bohlinger says yes. 

Mr. Barrs? 

Mr. BARRS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman AKAKA. Dr. Gans? 

Dr. GANS. Yes, it has. 

Mr. DABBS. I would tend to agree. 

Ms. LAPLACA. I would agree. 

Chairman AKAKA. Now, Ms. Bohlinger, you mentioned the importance of family, family involvement in treatment, and I certainly 

agree with you. As the mother of a veteran with TBI, and as a family caregiver, what services and support have been most important 

to you in helping to care for your son? 

Ms. BOHLINGER. I would say, Mr. Chairman, the most important 

has been the TBI group on an ongoing basis, because what it does 

is give him real people to be around. His life is very isolated now, 

and even the telemedicine, while that is going to be really important, for some of these individuals their worlds have become so 

small that they do not get much person-to-person contact. 

So I would say that group setting has been helpful. They just 

need to schedule it at a time that is convenient for the veteran. 

Chairman AKAKA. What services did you not receive that would 

have been helpful? 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Services that I did not receive would include the 

scan when that was requested, because I knew the other assessments were not correct. Services for me, you know, it is wearing. 

I am emotionally, physically, financially exhausted after 5 years. 

When we talked about integrating family members in our situation, 

that is not going on yet. They set up separate groups. Then they 

used information, very candid information that we gave, and then 

went to our loved one and told him, which undermined trust. So 

you can imagine then having to create another bridge to get back 

with your loved one and have him trust you. 

Really, it just all needs to be together. It needs to all be together. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. 

Mr. Dabbs, you mentioned that in VISN–11 only three veterans 

have been referred to private care by VA. Do you have any sense 

of why this is the case or how many other veterans could benefit 

by increasing referrals? 

Mr. DABBS. Yes, sir. I think as it pertains to your question and 

in answer to this one as well, the VA has made significant strides 

of improving care, but I believe, at least what we are seeing in 

Michigan, that there is total inadequate resources available within 

the VA to be able to execute that care for the numbers of people 

involved. Therein lies the problem. I think it speaks a bit to Dr. 

Gans’ point a moment ago where he indicated that there is a very 

finite number of people who work in the field of brain injury and 

brain injury rehabilitation. The VA does not have them. The private sector does not have them. It means that it is more critical 

than ever that the two work together closely to be able to provide 

this care that is needed. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. 

Dr. LaPlaca, while I am a strong supporter of VA research, your 

testimony about the difficulty you have had in cooperating with VA 

143 

is unfortunate. What benefits would you expect to see if you were 

able to work more closely with VA? 

Ms. LAPLACA. Thank you for the question. It is a very important 

issue. There are many successful research collaborations between 

academic professors and VA researchers, and there is a lot of encouragement to do so. So although I have had some frustration at 

the level between myself and other researchers, there is a lot of enthusiasm to share ideas, share research resources. 

I think an added benefit for me is to have more exposure to the 

patient. The VA researchers have a more realistic idea of the needs 

and how that can trickle down and what needs to drive our research. 

I think the main problem is that there is bureaucracy. There are 

a lot of IT issues. You know, computers cannot come out of the VA, 

so data sharing has to be done pretty much offsite, which requires 

approval. There are hurdles like that which are just—that part of 

it is frustrating, but it is possible. The VA system has made it possible for academic researchers to have appointments within the 

system and compete for VA merit grants. But it is not widespread, 

and it can be difficult. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

Senator Tester? 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think it is important to point out before I get into my questions 

that the previous panel stuck around—and I want to thank them 

for that—to listen to the comments of this panel. I very much appreciate that, and I appreciate your commitment. 

I want to start with Ms. Bohlinger. You talked about the fact 

that your son is a rural kid living in Seattle in an urban area, and 

it is just impossible to get them back to the State. What would the 

VA have to do to be able to allow you to bring your son back to 

a State like Montana? 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Well, I would like to see a polytrauma center, 

because he goes in twice a week still for services, and we do not 

have those services available. His medical team is important. 

Senator TESTER. So if a polytrauma center was set up, that 

would take care of it. 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. OK. One of the things that I think is very important is everybody has equal access, and you talked about in 

your opening remarks that you got different treatment as—I will 

just say ‘‘as a regular person’’ than as the Second Lady of Montana. 

Could you tell me what the difference was? Can you give me an 

example of how it was different? Because it should not have been. 

It should not have been different for you or me or anybody in the 

audience. The level of respect and treatment should be the same. 

Ms. BOHLINGER. An example would be when I was led through 

a particular center, I was able to talk with certain veterans only. 

I went back on my own time to talk to whoever I wanted to, and 

the other veterans that they steered me away from, they said, ‘‘Oh, 

no, you cannot go in that door; that gentleman is having issues,’’ 

I went back and talked to people and found out what they were 

really experiencing. 

144 

Senator TESTER. OK. Dr. LaPlaca, you talked about—and I am 

not a researcher. I am not an M.D. I majored in music, not in 

science, so this is out of my area. You talked about how you could 

not duplicate polytrauma in the law. I do not want to put words 

in your mouth, but that is what I heard you say. 

Is that because we have not tried, or is that because it just cannot be done? 

Ms. LAPLACA. No, let me rephrase that. Perhaps I misspoke. I 

said it is not studied in the laboratory. 

Senator TESTER. OK. 

Ms. LAPLACA. It is not a common—our injuries that we study are 

very homogeneous, not heterogeneous like the real population. 

Senator TESTER. Would it be your advocacy then that we head 

in that direction? 

Ms. LAPLACA. I think it is going to be very important. I think 

there will be some hesitation to do that because even studying an 

isolated brain injury alone is so complex that I think it scares most 

researchers to think, OK, well, let us add, you know, a leg injury 

or a lung injury to that. 

However, I think we have to bite the bullet, and we have to move 

forward in that direction in order to—I mean, a drug that works 

on a brain injury may not work or may be adverse to give to a patient who has multiple thoracic injuries. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Thank you very much. 

I want to thank everybody on the panel today for being here and 

sharing your time and your stories and your vision with us. Thank 

you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Senator Brown? 

STATEMENT OF HON. SCOTT P. BROWN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate your patience with me running around today. I have 

a bunch of different hearings, so thank you. And thank you to the 

panel. 

Jonathan, in dealing with your situation—first of all, thank you 

for your service and your sacrifice. I know you are dealing with trying to get your life back on track. What can you tell me that would 

help other soldiers who are in similar situations? Because in reading about you and having my team brief me, it seems to me the 

biggest problem was time and the fact that it moved like molasses. 

You always felt like you were in quicksand trying to get the answers, trying, you know, to get help, trying to get services. I was 

hoping you could tell us what would be something that we could 

do and make recommendations to the appropriate agencies? 

Mr. BARRS. Thank you, sir. I would say when I first got out I was 

still—I guess as you can say, I can meet a new person, it is OK, 

because, you know, you got new guys coming in the Marine Corps 

all the time. And like I said in one of my statements, I just started 

getting treatment for my TBI. That was last month. I think if they 

were to be faster with it, it would be—I cannot think of the word. 

145 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Better results? Quicker results? 

Mr. BARRS. Along that track, and also you would be able to, I 

guess, talk to somebody and let them know, because hearing Mrs. 

Bohlinger talk about her son, I actually know what she is talking 

about. I am not very good at meeting new people, and I am isolated. I do not just speak for myself. I think it is for everybody else 

out there that also has this injury. 

So I think waiting on, for instance, Winston-Salem to give me a 

letter, I mean, I can wait all day for that. But when you got a primary care doctor, as I stated, he is more going by the book, what 

the book is telling him to do. I am asking for certain things. I am 

not asking it—well, as they say, ‘‘I am not asking for my health.’’ 

Actually, I am. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. BOHLINGER. That is OK. 

Mr. BARRS. It is just the doctors—it seems like the doctors I have 

met—I guess that is where the problem starts. It is like they are 

9 to 5 people. You know, I am over here struggling wondering how 

I am going to get the next meal on the table because I have not 

received my VA rating yet. This guy is making $100,000 a year and 

he is just basically pushing me off. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. So let me ask you a question. When you came off of active duty, traditionally you get, you 

know, the—you get evaluated, you get determined if there is any 

type of disabilities, any injuries. Did you go through that exit process with your unit? 

Mr. BARRS. What happened, see, as you guys said, yes, there is 

a pre-deployment and post-deployment exam, but I can say—and I 

do not mean to sound rude—you have to realize that yes, I have 

seen combat. I know I am going to be different. And I am not going 

to write on some piece of paper, yes, I have seen this, yes, I have 

seen this, because, yes, there are consequences. I never wanted to 

get out. But—I just totally lost my point. I am sorry. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. No, that is OK, because 

what I am trying to just figure out is in my experience as a JAG 

in the military, one of the biggest problems that I recognize, Mr. 

Chairman and members of the panel, is that as a lawyer I look at, 

OK, this is the problem, how do we solve it, how do we make it 

better, how do we streamline and how do we get the services and 

access better. And not to put Jonathan on the spot, but what I 

found—and I am hoping that you all can address, whoever is in the 

room dealing with these things—is when the people are doing their 

post-deployment process and they are being evaluated, we need to 

make sure that we have—that every State has—the tools and resources to quickly, effectively, and compassionately evaluate our 

soldiers, because you are taught in the military to be macho and 

to be tough and to, you know, bite the bullet, pull up your pants, 

you know, the whole—it is the same with postpartum depression 

with women. I am hopeful that each State—and Massachusetts is 

a little bit different. We have identified it a little bit better. Montana is different, it seems. 

146 

So how do we make sure that each soldier that is getting through 

with their duty is quickly and effectively evaluated? And is there 

anyone on the panel that can address that? Sir? 

Mr. DABBS. Senator, what we have done in Michigan, Major 

Briggs has developed a great working relationship, and every single unit that comes back Major Briggs briefs regarding brain injury. Also as part of that, he briefs their families. And it is really— 

as Mrs. Bohlinger indicated earlier, it is often the family that is 

really the key person, the key group to help identify. 

That does not solve the screening issue or any of that, I realize, 

but I think it is the easiest step that could be executed immediately in almost every State of this country if we were to choose 

to do so. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Well, is there a national 

plan that is, in fact, being instituted or is it being left up to individual States to do this? Is there a national model where we are 

saying to the States and/or the individual units, whether Guard, 

Reserve, active, ‘‘Hey, this is what you guys need to do. When 

somebody gets home, this is going to happen. We are going to brief 

the families and let them know’’—is there a plan like that? 

Mr. DABBS. Sir, I am not aware of one. And let me as part of that 

thought, throw out one other point that I think the Committee 

needs to recognize. We talk about the VA, or at least what we have 

seen in Michigan, being overburdened. I got some figures yesterday 

from the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs of Michigan 

that indicate that there are over 725,000 veterans in Michigan, and 

yet only 230,000 are enrolled in the VA. So not everyone is even 

taking advantage of that system, yet the system is already overburdened. Just overburdened. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Right. Mr. Chairman, do I 

have a chance to continue on for a little bit? 

Chairman AKAKA. Surely. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Thank you. 

And that is one of those reasons because, you know, not everybody stays in the military system. They get better primary care 

coverages, obviously. And one of the biggest complaints that I have 

heard in my many, many years of serving and just being alive is 

that people do not feel that they are getting the best service or the 

most quality services from the VA as evidenced by what happened 

a few years ago. 

I know we are trying to tackle those very sensitive problems, but, 

ma’am, if I could direct my question to you. Thank you for your 

sacrifice, your family’s sacrifice, and your son’s service. You mentioned briefly the respite care that you have, and you have made 

the resources a little better for you to travel and go see your son 

and the like. And being who you are, you get that little extra help, 

which is—whatever it is, if it was my son, I would not care. I would 

go through the wall. It does not matter. 

What suggestions or improvements can you give to us that we 

can convey to the appropriate authorities as to how to help people 

in your situation who are affected by, you know, the change in 

their kids’ lives. 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Thank you for that question. I would just refer 

back quickly to what Jonathan said because I think this is at the 

147 

core of it. It is that length of time delay. While I did have resources, I have spent over $180,000 of my retirement funds on his 

care. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Right. 

Ms. BOHLINGER. Now, that is going to be difficult at my age to 

try to make up. Frankly, I will spend it all if I need to. But when 

he said, ‘‘I do not know where the next meal is coming from’’—because there are no resources in between. If you do not have a family member who is going to pay your rent, buy your groceries, pay 

your bills, get everything taken care of for you, a couple of years 

go by, and that is a lot of money. And it is very stressful, if I may 

say this, for the individual because these guys are taught to be 

macho. Failure is not an option. They take the warrior creed. So 

then, to not only be dependent and know that your life has 

changed, but now you have to ask someone to, you know, buy your 

groceries and help you put food on the table because you served 

your country and in a year or two they cannot get that determination done? 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Right. You know, Mr. Chairman, one of the things I would hope that with your leadership we 

could direct and insist that we speed up the process, because when 

somebody is hurt like this and they need our help and resources, 

I feel the delay is the biggest obstacle. We should be able to process 

these soldiers quickly and effectively and give them the funds and 

care and love and attention that they need right away. To think 

that somebody is going a couple of years before they even get, you 

know, screened properly and properly identified in this day and age 

just blows my mind. I do not know if offline we can talk, the three 

of us, to kind of come up with a plan and get some guidance; try 

to push the buttons and put the fire under somebody, because it 

is unacceptable to me, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for your allowing me to inquire. 

Ms. LAPLACA. Excuse me. May I add to that? I think there is another reason to speed up the time, not just in terms of these very 

important issues, but also because the injury is getting worse over 

time. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. The recovery time. 

Ms. LAPLACA. The window for recovery is—— 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. It gets smaller and smaller. 

Ms. LAPLACA. It is small. Things are ongoing. You can do delayed treatment, but the longer you wait, the less beneficial it is 

going to be for most veterans. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. That makes sense with any 

injury, and since you spoke up, how do you think the VA can better 

partner with nongovernmental health care providers to help in that 

effort? 

Ms. LAPLACA. I think more of what we are already doing in 

terms of collaboration, I think multi-agency funding mechanisms 

that require and encourage basic findings to get to the right level, 

and—— 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. But none of that is in place 

now, right, really? In reality, none of that—— 

Ms. LAPLACA. No, the previous panel spoke about many granting 

programs that are in place, and the 2007 appropriations for TrauVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00151 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
148 

matic Brain Injury research included both clinical and basic research. But I think, you know, that was a good boost for the community, but it needs to continue. We need more of it. We need more 

cooperation among the agencies. 

Senator BROWN OF MASSACHUSETTS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I have to get back to the other hearing now. 

Thank you. 

Chairman AKAKA. Senator Brown, thank you so much for your 

questions and the responses that you received. I agree with you. 

This is why we are holding these hearings, to bring the different 

parts of our Government, including Congress and the Administration, together so that we can move more quickly. I would tell you 

also that we are so fortunate we have brought into play advanced 

funding to deal with this because without resources we cannot do 

it. So now it is a little easier to do it because we now have the possibility for better resources. 

So all of these are coming in quickly, and I expect to see movements faster than there has ever been before. And so with your experience and your recommendations, we can move more quickly in 

a concerted way. 

Mr. Dabbs, do you have a comment to make? 

Mr. DABBS. Senator, if I may—and it may go out of the purview 

of this Committee, but I would like to at least toss out the idea 

that one of the hindrances that we have seen with TRICARE is 

that they operate under the Medicare guidelines. The Medicare 

guidelines do not provide for cognitive rehabilitation for long-term 

care, and therein lies one of the major stumbling points that is affecting the VA as well as DOD. So I would urge, if there is a way 

which that could be addressed, I would certainly be willing to share 

our thoughts with the Committee at a later date. 

Chairman AKAKA. Well, with that, I ask any member of the 

panel if you want to make a closing statement as to what you think 

about what we can do. Dr. Gans? 

Dr. GANS. I would like to just add that the notion that I have 

heard from family members and those patients who are able to advocate for themselves is very similar to what Ms. Bohlinger and 

Jonathan Barrs have said: It is timely access and it is choice. 

Whether it is choice of staying within the VA Polytrauma System, 

which many people are very happy with and that is their choice, 

that is great, but if it is choice for using a facility that has certain 

other resources available in a different location or if it is choice to 

be closer to home and community—it is timeliness. The stories that 

I heard from the family members I talked about, waiting a year 

and fighting for a year to provide services, getting Members of Congress to help advocate on their behalf to get services provided; it 

is just not the right way to treat these folks. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. 

Dr. LaPlaca? 

Ms. LAPLACA. Chairman, as an engineer and as a scientist, we 

are constantly looking for innovative solutions to these very problems. However, I do think we need to take a look at home health 

care and simple solutions. I mean, cognitive rehab over a long period of time can be done in a simple manner, in an inexpensive 

manner, if it is organized and if it is part of these programs. 

149 

So while people are waiting for the doctor—I mean, there are a 

lot of problems here that need to be addressed. But organizing 

these case managers and some of these transitional programs, it is 

worthwhile, in my opinion, to look for simple solutions that can be 

implemented and taken home, and that I think partially addresses 

some of the rural area problems as well as some of the cognitive 

rehabilitation that is so critical. 

Chairman AKAKA. Let me ask a final question to Mr. Barrs because I think your answer and what you have been through will 

help us. I am very concerned about your testimony that you were 

twice exposed to IED blasts in your first tour, but were not 

screened for TBI until late 2008. In the interim, you were sent 

back for a second tour without proper treatment. Were you ever 

told why it took so long for you to be screened and treated? 

Mr. BARRS. Mr. Chairman, when I was in Iraq for my first tour, 

we were at this train station that we were building up, so we did 

not really have that much to work with. And I had in my statement that I had to go to another FOB, also known as the Forward 

Operating Base, because of excessive weight loss. I was puking 

every day. I could not hold anything down. I lost approximately 40 

pounds in 2 weeks. That was my biggest issue then, I guess. And 

because we had really nobody—I never really noticed that I had 

glass in my head until I got back to the FOB. I took off my Kevlar, 

and then when I ran my fingers through my hair, that is when I 

noticed it. So I did not really say anything before then. I am still 

walking. You know, the good Lord kept me alive, so I was just, like, 

OK. 

And the second blast, it was noted though it was never put into 

my medical record. The corpsman just checked me out and I never 

said anything on my, you know, post-deployment/pre-deployment 

stuff because I am a U.S. Marine. I am not going to argue. The 

only thing that really got it started was I had these horrible migraines, and finally it took several BAS appointments just to get 

looked at for migraines; and as soon as that hit, I really did not 

have time to think. It was appointment, appointment, OK, you are 

out of the Marine Corps now. 

So it could have been, you know, it could be my fault, too, that 

it was not done quickly. But like I said, I am a U.S. Marine, and 

I am not going to argue about what I do. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Barrs. I asked that 

because we need to deal with some of these delays that have occurred and improve our system. 

I believe that together we have made important strides in caring 

for veterans with TBI. VA has dramatically improved services for 

these veterans. We are learning more each day about how to 

screen, diagnose, and treat this signature wound of the current 

wars. I thank the VA employees and providers throughout the entire VA system for making this possible. However, as long as we 

have any veterans with undiagnosed TBI, partnerships with community providers left untapped, or research left unused, there is 

still work to do. 

I will conclude by thanking all of our witnesses for your testimony today. Your insights, without question, have been helpful in 

better understanding the state of TBI care. I especially thank Mr. 

150 

Barrs for his service and his sacrifice. Also, Mrs. Bohlinger, I thank 

you and thank your son for his service, as well. 

Finally, I again acknowledge and commend the roughly 280,000 

VA employees who choose to work for veterans and their families. 

As many of you know, this is Public Service Recognition Week, an 

ideal opportunity to recognize and thank those who serve our 

former servicemembers with such dedication and commitment. I 

offer you our gratitude. 

Thank you very much, and thank you for this great hearing. This 

hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(151) 

1Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, http://www.dvbic.org/TBI-Numbers.aspx 

A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SARAH WADE, WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT

Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Burr and Members of the Committee, Thank 

you for inviting Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) to provide a perspective on the 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) efforts to respond to the rehabilitation needs 

of veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury. 

Through our extensive work both with servicemembers and veterans who have 

sustained severe Traumatic Brain Injuries, and with their family caregivers, 

Wounded Warrior Project brings a keen appreciation of VA’s critically important 

role in the care and rehabilitation of these warriors. I’ve had the opportunity to 

work with many of these families, and will attempt to include their experiences as 

well as my own into our testimony. 

My husband Ted sustained a severe Traumatic Brain Injury in February 2004 as 

a result of an IED while serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Given the gravity of 

his injuries, we were told it was doubtful Ted would survive, and were approached 

with the option to withdraw care. Ted did pull through, but remained in a coma 

for two more months. Ted is alive today because of the extraordinary neurosurgical 

care he received. No one ever questioned doing the costly surgeries that saved Ted’s 

life. In fact, because Ted’s case was so complicated, the Army arranged for the surgeries to be performed by experts at a German university hospital, and later Walter 

Reed brought in an outside neurologist to provide care. 

We had been told that it was highly unlikely that Ted would ever function at a 

higher level. In fact, he is living far more independently and functioning at a far 

higher level than many would have imagined because of the outstanding rehabilitative care he got later. But, in contrast to the Army’s ‘‘exhaust-all-possibilities’’ approach, I’ve had to fight over the years to get VA to authorize many of the rehabilitative services that have truly made a difference, enabling Ted to live in the community and to continue to progress. 

VA has certainly made very substantial strides in responding to the treatment 

and rehabilitative needs of veterans with severe TBI. Among its very important 

achievements are the build-out of a polytrauma network, the establishment of OEF/ 

OIF coordinators and Federal Recovery Coordinators, and more frequent use of feebasis and contracting authority. But notwithstanding very real and tangible institutional changes and compassionate care provided by many, many dedicated clinical 

staff, there remain troubling gaps. We deeply appreciate the Committee’s concern 

with closing those gaps, and ensuring these veterans the opportunity to realize the 

highest level of independence and functioning they can attain. 

GAPS IN VA REHABILITATIVE SERVICES FOR VETERANS WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

As you know, Mr. Chairman, our troops have sustained relatively few casualties 

in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and servicemembers who would likely not have survived in previous conflicts are returning 

home with unprecedented complex, severe injuries. Some 1,500 have sustained a severe TBI since October 2001.1 Many of these young men and women will require assistance for life, ranging from total care for the most basic needs, to supports for 

semi-independent living. 

Veteran-centered care: Each case of Traumatic Brain Injury is unique. Depending 

on the site of the injury and other factors, patients may experience a wide range 

of medical and related physical effects—from profound neurological deficits, to problems with speaking, vision, eating, incontinence, etc.—as well as dramatic behavioral symptoms and cognitive deficits. As VA clinicians themselves recognize, it is 

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2Sharon M. Benedict, Ph.D., ‘‘Polytrauma Rehabilitation Family Education Manual,’’ Department of Veterans Affairs Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center, McGuire VA Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia; http://saa.dva.state.wi.us/Docs/TBI/Family_Ed_Manual112007.pdf (accessed 

April 27, 2010). 3 Eric K. Shinseki, Secretary of Veterans Affairs to the Honorable Daniel Akaka, Chairman, 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, U.S. Senate, 23 March 2010. 4 Id. 

5 38 U.S.C. sec. 1710C. 

6 38 U.S.C. sec. 1710C(b)(1). 

difficult to predict a person’s ultimate level of recovery.2 But to be effective in helping an individual recover from a brain injury and return to a life as independent 

and productive as possible, rehabilitation must be targeted to the specific needs of 

the individual patient. In VA parlance, rehabilitation must be ‘‘veteran-centered.’’ 

This simple principle is a critical touchstone by which to gauge VA’s progress in TBI 

care. Is VA providing ‘‘veteran-centered TBI care?’’ We see progress; but the system 

does not live up to the VA’s claim of ‘‘world class’’ service,3 in our view. Let me highlight some of the critical gaps. 

Access to the right services: 

Given that every case of TBI is unique and each patient’s care and rehabilitative 

needs differ, it is unrealistic to believe that every VA medical center, or even most, 

can have the needed range of expertise ‘‘in-house’’ to meet the wide-ranging, often 

complex needs of all TBI patients. WWP’s experience is that even the over 100 VA 

facilities that have received additional staffing, equipment and training and constitute its TBI/Polytrauma System of Care are not fully equipped to provide the 

wide range of services TBI patients need. 

Even a facility with the most well equipped, well-staffed rehabilitation service 

may not be the right setting for some TBI patients. A young veteran who needs help 

with community reintegration and relearning basic life skills cannot be expected to 

make meaningful gains in a geriatric facility. Too often, VA TBI care for OEF/OIF 

veterans is not age-appropriate. 

Unlike the Army’s willingness to bring in outside experts when it was not fully 

prepared to meet Ted’s clinical needs, my own experience and that of other families 

is that VA facilities have been much less open to acknowledge limitations in expertise or lack of options when they exist and to offer alternatives that might produce 

better outcomes. We have noted that with greater congressional focus on the issue, 

VA has demonstrated greater openness to authorizing non-VA sources to provide 

rehab services that are not available at, or cannot feasibly be provided, through VA 

facilities. But surely in a veteran-centered system of care a patient’s spouse would 

not have to take the lead on researching how best to meet her husband’s rehabilitative needs and have to press to get those services approved. And as the examples 

cited below reflect, a more veteran-centered system would not so routinely reject 

such requests. 

Individualized Rehabilitation Plans: 

VA has advised this Committee that ‘‘[a]n individualized rehabilitation and community reintegration plan is developed for every Veteran and active duty Servicemember who requires ongoing rehabilitation care for TBI;’’ VA has also reported to 

you that ‘‘[t]he patient and family participate in development of the treatment plan 

and receive a copy of the plan from the care coordinator.’’ 4 Of course, VA is required 

by law to develop such plans, engage family and veteran in the plan’s development, 

and provide copies of the plan to the veteran and family.5 But caregivers with whom 

I’ve worked closely have never seen a rehabilitation plan, and—while they acknowledge that VA clinicians may develop a plan—they report that they have not been 

afforded an opportunity to play a role in its development. I have seen a VA document that was described to me as a veteran’s TBI rehab plan but was little more 

than a list of the services VA would be providing or had authorized. In contrast, 

the law makes it clear that these plans are to include rehabilitative objectives for 

improving the physical, cognitive, and vocational functioning of the individual with 

the goal of maximizing the independence and reintegration of such individual into 

the community.6 It is critical, in our view, that those rehab objectives are clearly 

identified, and that the veteran and family are active participants in setting those 

objectives and in identifying the specific treatments and services to be provided to 

achieve those objectives. Effective rehabilitation requires that providers, patients 

and their families work together to achieve the best possible outcomes. That must 

start with rehabilitation planning. Veteran-centered rehabilitation demands no less. 

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7 Nathan D. Cope, M.D., and William E. Reynolds, DDS, MPH; ‘‘Systems of Care,’’ in Textbook 

of Traumatic Brain Injury (4th ed.), American Psychiatric Publishing (2005), 533–568. 8 Id. 

Effectiveness of case-management and care-coordination: 

The Federal Recovery Coordination Program has proven an exceptional initiative 

in assisting many who were severely injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their 

families, to access needed care, services, and benefits. It has been especially important for veterans with multiple complex needs, such as those with severe TBI. But 

as the program was not established until 2007, many who were severely wounded 

earlier in the war and who are still struggling years after their injuries, lack this 

singular support. In all, only about 460 warriors have Federal Recovery Coordinators (FRC’s). There is a clear need to augment the number of FRC’s assigned to help 

wounded warriors, particularly those with the complex needs associated with a severe brain injury. 

But as helpful as FRCs have been in removing barriers to services, having an 

FRC does not solve all problems. Not all case-managers and care-coordinators necessarily have experience with brain injury. And as FRC’s are for the most part located at a handful of key DOD acute-care facilities, these individuals are generally 

not familiar with the resources in the veteran’s community. Given deep resistance 

at many VA facilities to draw on community expertise, the FRC’s limited ability to 

navigate locally is concerning. But an even more fundamental, troubling issue is the 

deeply engrained culture of ‘‘no’’ that too often confronts veterans and their advocates, whether parents, spouses, or care-coordinators attempting to meet the veteran’s needs. Too often, VA facilities do not seem hesitant to say ‘‘no’’ to FRCs. 

In short, the individual case-management assistance afforded by an FRC is no 

substitute for more thorough-going system changes. 

Scope and duration of rehabilitative services: 

While many VA facilities have dedicated rehabilitation physicians, therapists and 

other specialists, the scope of services actually provided these veterans is often limited, both in duration and in the range of services VA will provide or authorize. 

Such barriers needlessly constrain rehabilitative and long-term care options, and as 

a result, prevent too many veterans with severe TBI from attaining their goal of 

continued recovery and maximum quality of life. 

The literature indicates that some people make a good recovery after suffering a 

severe TBI. But many have considerable difficulty with community integration even 

after undergoing rehabilitative care, and may need further services and supports.7

But it is all too common for families—reliant on VA to help a loved one recover after 

sustaining a severe Traumatic Brain Injury—to be told that VA can no longer provide a particular service because the veteran is no longer making significant 

progress. Imagine the frustration and feeling of abandonment when a Department 

whose mission is to ‘‘care for him who has borne the battle’’ says, ‘‘no more therapy!’’ 

It is not clear whether VA’s failure to provide veterans who sustained severe TBI 

with ongoing maintenance rehabilitation is based on a perception that VA’s statutory authority is limited to therapy to ‘‘regain function,’’ on cost concerns, or on 

other considerations. But it is clear that ongoing rehabilitation is often needed to 

maintain function.8 Whatever the explanation for limiting the duration of a veteran’s therapy, there is profound reason for concern that many veterans denied 

maintenance therapy will regress, losing cognitive, physical and other gains made 

during earlier rehabilitation. 

Significantly, VA facilities are also denying requests to provide TBI patients with 

what might be deemed ‘‘non-medical’’ supports. Yet supports like community-reintegration therapy, life-skills coaching, or supported employment, for example, afford the veteran the opportunity to gain greater independence and improved quality 

of life. Given TBI sequellae that cause individuals considerable difficulty re-integrating into the community, VA’s rigid adherence to a medical model of rehabilitation—and foreclosing social supports—is a formula for denying a veteran the promise of full recovery. 

VETERAN AND FAMILY PROFILES

In attempting to emphasize the importance of making TBI-care truly veteran-centered, let me give you some context by sharing the perspectives of a few of family 

members with whom I’ve worked who have a son or spouse who suffered a TBI. 

Houston VAMC: After her son sustained a severe TBI and was medically retired 

in 2006, one mother-turned-caregiver encountered a VA system she has experienced 

as inflexible and quick to say ‘‘no.’’ Despite ‘‘spots of brilliance’’ in the care her son 

154 

has received, the process of gaining access to needed services has often been ‘‘dogged 

and exhausting.’’ After long acting as her son’s full-time at-home caretaker, she encountered repeated VA refusals to provide a few hours/day of home-attendant services on the basis that the services ‘‘weren’t medically necessary.’’ Ultimately, she 

pursued congressional help to win the Houston VAMC’s agreement to provide assistance she discovered was routinely furnished by other VA facilities. But the medical 

center would authorize that help only one-hour per day, three times weekly—insufficient to give her the respite she so badly needed. The home attendant assistance 

also lacked the structure and routine that young TBI patients so desperately need, 

with attendants coming at varying and unpredictable hours each day. Frustrated 

with a system that was much more attuned to the needs of geriatric patients rather 

than young wounded warriors like her son, she canceled the VA-arranged home-attendant care in favor of more age-appropriate help that the family covered out of 

pocket. 

As the veteran has slowly regained cognition, his needs and those of his family 

have changed. When his mother requested counseling (as provided for by law) for 

the veteran’s two younger siblings to help them cope with the trauma and profound 

adjustments associated with their brother’s injuries, VA rejected the request. The 

medical center’s unwillingness to recognize the direct relationship between the mental health of the caretaking family and the veteran’s continuing therapy continues 

to trouble her. A Federal Recovery Coordinator has made a difference in winning 

approval of some needed services. But when she recently sought approval to get a 

mode of therapy to help her son learn to progress toward vocational and other personal goals, her VA social worker questioned ‘‘when is enough enough’’ in terms of 

further therapy. The subliminal message was clear: ‘‘the clock is running out on providing more therapy for your son.’’ I think we can all agree that this is not the message of a ‘‘veteran centered’’ system. 

Tampa VAMC: After making dramatic progress in recovering from an open head 

wound incurred in March 2006, this OIF veteran had a setback while undergoing 

rehab at VA’s Tampa polytrauma center. His mother, a nurse herself, had found the 

clinical staff agonizingly slow in responding to her plea to compare her slowly-dying 

son’s CT scans with those last taken at Walter Reed. At last discovering a massive 

buildup of brain fluid, Tampa returned the veteran to Walter Reed for emergency 

brain surgery. After re-entering therapy from ground zero, the veteran progressed 

well for about a year. In the first of what became a series of problems, the Tampa 

VA was unwilling to provide physical therapy to help him restore left-arm movement. In frustration, his mother turned to a Member of Congress; VA did then arrange for the needed therapy to be provided at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. When Tampa later refused her requests for further therapy to prevent 

reversal in the gains he had made, she turned to Medicare. That apparently prompted Tampa to discharge the veteran altogether, with no follow-up plan whatsoever. 

He moved into his own apartment, but—without structure and supervision, and 

with a condition marked by impulsivity and lack of insight—he spun out of control, 

and has struggled since then with PTSD, depression, and substance-use complicating his TBI problems. In describing just one chapter of the family’s long ordeal 

with his self-destructive behaviors, his mom reports having begged Tampa for help 

with his complex problems, and being told they didn’t feel it was their responsibility 

as this veteran wasn’t asking for help. Despite Tampa’s lack of cooperation, she ultimately succeeded in having him admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital for 

neuropsychiatric care. While his neuropsychiatrist at Bethesda, after a four-month 

hospitalization, recommended that he be provided a full-time life-skills coach to furnish constant supervision and structure, Tampa ultimately agreed instead to provide a home health aide and regular VA outpatient treatment. The veteran’s mother 

observed that ‘‘while Tampa has stepped up’’ since the neuropsychiatrist’s involvement, they seem to ‘‘have only one care plan, and if you don’t fit into it, you’re out 

of luck.’’ 

Iowa City VAMC: Caregiver; accountant; occupational therapist; physical therapist; driver; mental health counselor; life coach. These are all roles an Iowa wife has 

taken on since her husband was injured in a mortar attack in 2005 in Iraq. He sustained a penetrating injury to the right side of his brain, leaving him hemiplegic, 

and without a right eye. After two trips to Walter Reed and a seven month stay 

at the Minneapolis VA, the veteran returned home, becoming Iowa City VA’s first 

polytrauma patient. But despite its classification as one of the VA’s 108 specialized 

rehabilitation centers, Iowa City VAMC has proven ill-equipped to provide the range 

of services the veteran needed, particularly, physical, occupational, and cognitive 

therapy. While the facility arranged for the veteran to receive rehab services from 

a better-equipped private facility, it discontinued the services after a year based apparently on the view that he wasn’t improving quickly enough. It intermittently proVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00158 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
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9 38 U.S.C. sec. 1710C(b)(2). 

10 38 U.S.C. sec. 1710D(a). 11 38 U.S.C. sec. 1701(8). 12 James F. Malec, ‘‘Ethical and evidence-based practice in brain injury rehabilitation,’’ Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 19, no. 6 (2009), 800. 

vided brief periods of fee-basis physical therapy in response to the wife’s concerns 

that the veteran fell frequently, but discontinued that therapy, citing funding constraints and a policy of limiting patients to no more than 24 such sessions. She was 

advised that it was time for the family to pay for further physical therapy. The decision left the veteran’s wife to become her husband’s physical and occupational therapist, using the techniques she videotaped at the independent facility. She later 

taught a nursing assistant, who VA furnishes twice-weekly through a home-health 

agency, to administer physical therapy. While she has requested VA to allow the 

agency to send a physical therapist to their home, the medical center refused. She 

expressed reluctance to push any harder for the needed therapy for fear of ‘‘burning 

bridges’’ with the VA—her husband’s only source of health care. 

CLOSING THE GAPS

VA leaders have taken important steps toward establishing both a TBI system of 

care and policies aimed at fostering optimal recoveries for veterans and servicemembers with severe TBI. But deep, troubling gaps in that system are compromising realization of too many veterans’ potential for full rehabilitation. This must 

change—and the needed change must be in a single direction—toward truly veteran-centered care. 

The principle of veteran-centered care must be more than a slogan. It must be 

a core value at the heart of VA’s TBI program. If rehabilitation and care is to be 

veteran-centered, VA facilities must develop truly individualized rehabilitation 

plans built around goals developed in concert with the veteran and his/her family. 

Those plans must also provide for access to all ‘‘appropriate rehabilitative components,’’ 9 a requirement that encompasses ‘‘age-appropriate’’ services. Providing veteran-centered care also requires a fundamental change aimed at meeting each veteran’s rehabilitation needs—whether through services VA provides or procures. If 

VA TBI care is to be veteran-centered and ‘‘world class,’’ it can no longer reflect an 

approach that says, in effect, ‘‘we don’t provide that service; you’ll have to accept 

our service or pay for the care you want out of pocket.’’ Successful rehabilitation 

must build on the strengths and needs of the injured individual; requiring the injured veteran to adapt to arbitrary VA requirements or limitations is a sure path 

to rehabilitative failure. To put it another way, VA must become a system that looks 

for ways to say ‘‘yes,’’ rather than ‘‘no.’’ 

But achieving veteran-centered care will also require statutory change. Under current law, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is to provide a comprehensive 

program of long-term care for post-acute Traumatic Brain Injury rehabilitation that 

includes residential, community, and home-based components using interdisciplinary treatment teams.10 Rehabilitative services, however, are defined in law to 

mean ‘‘such professional, counseling, and guidance services and treatment programs 

as are necessary to restore, to the maximum extent possible, the physical, mental, 

and psychological functioning of an ill or disabled person.’’ 11 Our experience, however, is that while VA furnishes services to restore function, wounded warriors are 

not necessarily assured under this statutory framework—or under current practice—of continued therapy to sustain function and to prevent loss of the gains 

achieved. The distinction is critically important to the well-being of a warrior with 

severe Traumatic Brain Injury. In addition, VA’s authority to provide rehabilitative 

services (as defined above) suggests the provision of services under a medical model. 

But a traditional medical model may not best meet the range of rehabilitative needs 

of a profoundly injured young warrior. Rehabilitation after a moderate to severe TBI 

requires more than just addressing physical deficits; it is also about improving and 

sustaining to the greatest extent possible that injured individual’s quality of life.12

It is vital that rehabilitative care and services for very severely injured warriors be 

individualized and holistic in nature, and that these warriors have reasonable access to, and a choice of options geared to their age and injury, whether through government facilities, private, or a combination. 

Mr. Chairman, we urge you, accordingly, to take up legislation to clarify VA’s authority to provide maintenance-rehabilitation to those with Traumatic Brain Injury 

as well as to enable VA to provide individualized rehabilitative services (not limited 

to a restrictive medical model) and patient-centered supports to permit the severely 

wounded warrior to live as normal a life as possible in whatever setting is most appropriate, to include in-home or in home-like residential options. Such legislation 

156 

would be a step toward moving VA to pioneer new approaches to rehabilitation and 

community living for young veterans learning to live with Traumatic Brain Injury, 

and to educating and training a new generation of specialists in Traumatic Brain 

Injury rehabilitation. 

We would welcome the opportunity to work with the Committee to shape such legislation. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE HEAD INJURY

ADMINISTRATORS

Dear Chairman Akaka and Members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee: 

The National Association of State Head Injury Administrators (NASHIA) appreciates this opportunity to submit testimony about how the Veterans Administration 

(VA) can best meet the needs of veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 directs the VA to collaborate with local, State, and private entities to improve services for veterans with TBI. 

It is NASHIA’s experience that the collaboration to date has largely been as the result of State and local initiatives. Greater efforts on the part of the VA and Department of Defense to coordinate with State resources and services could help fill the 

gaps in information and referral and service delivery. 

NASHIA AND THE ROLE OF STATES IN SERVING PERSONS WITH TBI

NASHIA was established in 1990 as a non-profit organization representing State 

governmental officials who administer an array of short-term and long-term rehabilitation and community services and supports for individuals with TBI and their 

families. NASHIA members include State officials administering public TBI programs and services, and associate members who are professionals, provider agencies, state affiliates of the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA), family members and individuals with brain injury. NASHIA holds annual State-of-the-States 

conferences throughout the United States and public policy seminars with Federal 

officials and Congressional staff, serves as a resource to the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force and provides technical assistance and advice to State TBI program 

managers. 

Most long-term care services and supports for persons with TBI are administered 

by the States, and funded mainly through the shared Federal/State Medicaid Home 

and Community-based Services Waivers (HCBS), nursing homes, Medicaid State 

Plan services, such as personal assistance and in-home care; State funds; and designated trust funds, derived primarily through traffic fines. Medicaid HCBS Waivers 

for Individuals with TBI have grown significantly in recent years, doubling from 

5,400 individuals served in 2002 to 11,214 in 2006, at a cost of $155 million in 2002 

to $327 million in 2006 (Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (2007, 

December); Medicaid Home and Community-Based Service Programs: Data Update, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Washington DC). Individuals with TBI are 

also served in other State waiver programs designed for physical disabilities, developmental disabilities, elderly and other populations. Individuals with TBI who are 

not Medicaid eligible receive similar services through programs funded by State general revenue and trust funds, and may also receive services through other disability 

programs such as Vocational Rehabilitation. Almost half of the States have enacted 

TBI trust legislation generating approximately $70 million a year for services and 

supports. 

Individuals with TBI seek State services often as the last resort. Private insurance generally has not provided for extended rehabilitation and long-term care, supports and services. And, in some instances, States have developed HCBS Waiver 

programs to end costly out of State placements. Families and individuals with TBI 

seek services in crisis situations, when families are in turmoil due to job loss, out 

of control behaviors or substance abuse that may result in family violence or dangerous situations to self and others. 

Without appropriate services and supports, individuals with TBI often are inappropriately placed in institutional settings or end up in State Correctional facilities 

due to their cognitive and behavioral disabilities. A recent report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited other jail and prison studies 

indicating that 25–87% of inmates report having experienced a TBI as compared to 

8.5% in a general population reporting a history of TBI. 

Often States provide the first contact for persons with TBI and their families, and 

provide referral to appropriate rehabilitative resources or advocacy services such as 

are provided by BIAA affiliates. Especially in cases where TBI has been undiagnosed, it is often when a person is homeless, the police are involved, that State servVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:21 Feb 28, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00160 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\ACTIVE\050510.TXT SVETS PsN: PAULIN
157 

ices are called upon and appropriate services are coordinated. A critical service that 

States provide is service coordination to help coordinate and maximize resources 

and supports for individuals with TBI and their families. 

THE INCIDENCE AND PREVALENCE OF TBI IS ON THE RISE

CDC recently released new data showing that the incidence and prevalence of TBI 

in the United States is on the rise. CDC reported that ‘‘each year, and estimated 

1.7 million people sustain a TBI. Of them: 52,000 die; 275,000 are hospitalized; and 

1.365 million (nearly 80%) are treated and released from an emergency department. 

TBI is a contributing factor to a third (30.5%) of all injury-related deaths in the 

United States. About 75% of TBIs that occur each year are concussions or other 

forms of mild TBI. The number of people with TBI who are not seen in an emergency department or who receive no care is unknown.’’ (www.cdc.gov/Traumatic 

BrainInjury/statistics.hml) 

The data collected by CDC relies heavily on State data, gathered through State 

Registries and hospital discharge data. 

These numbers do not include the veterans who sustained TBIs in Iraq or Afghanistan and now use private or State funded resources for care, or undiagnosed TBIs. 

STATE RESOURCES AND SERVICES

Over the past 25 years, States have developed service delivery systems that generally offer information and referral, service coordination, rehabilitation, in-home 

support, personal care, counseling, transportation, housing, vocational and other 

support services for persons with TBI and their families. These services are funded 

by State appropriations, designated funding (trust funds), Medicaid and Rehabilitation Act programs and administered by programs located in the State public health, 

vocational rehabilitation, mental health, Medicaid, developmental disabilities or social services agencies. 

Approximately half of all States have a dedicated funding mechanism, mainly 

through traffic related fines, that fund services and about half of all States also administer a Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services Waiver for individuals 

with brain injury who are Medicaid eligible. Some States have the advantage of 

both of these funding mechanisms in addition to other State and Federal resources. 

Most States have identified a lead agency responsible for providing and or coordinating services and most States have an advisory board or council to plan and coordinate public policies to better serve individuals who frequently needs assistance 

from multiple agencies and funding streams in order to address the complexity of 

their needs. 

Under the TBI Act of 1996, the US Department of Health and Human Services, 

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) provides grants to States to 

expand services and resources particularly to underserved populations. Since the 

program began, almost every State has received TBI Act funding, but there are currently less than 20 States participating in the program due to a lack of sufficient 

Federal funding. 

STATE COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS TO ADDRESS THE NEEDS OF VETERANS

Since servicemembers and veterans first began to return from Iraq and Afghanistan, NASHIA and some individual States have reached out to VA staff to participate in educational forums and national TBI conferences. Some States have reached 

out to work with the VA, particularly staff from individual Polytrauma Centers, to 

promote collaboration in order to better understand VA benefits for veterans that 

may be seeking State services, and for VA to understand what is available in the 

communities. In addition, some States have added representatives from VA, National Guard and Reserves, State Veterans Affairs, and/or veterans organizations to 

serve on their State advisory board in order to improve communications and policies 

across these programs. 

Some States have used the HRSA grant funding to address the needs of returning 

servicemembers and veterans with TBI. 

With the knowledge that veterans could fall through the cracks between discharge 

from the military or veteran care and community reentry, States have responded 

in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples: 

• Alaska convened an informal group of representatives from the State TBI Program, 3rd Medical Group (Elmendorf Air Force base), Alaska VA, Vet Centers, Alaska Federal Health Care Partnership, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, hospital providers, behavioral health providers, workforce development agencies, and 

disability advocacy organizations. The purpose of this group is to assess the services 

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and resources available in Alaska and partner in the planning of a comprehensive 

system of care; emergency medical services, acute/trauma care, post-acute rehabilitation, community re-entry, and long-term supports. • The Nebraska Veterans Brain Injury Task Force, which includes representatives from the civilian and military sector, and key State and Federal Government 

agencies, addresses the increasing needs for brain injury awareness and education 

among returning servicemembers from Iraq and Afghanistan. • The Vermont TBI program and the State Division of Vocational Rehabilitation 

share the cost of a neuro-resource facilitation (NRF) Job Developer to educate and 

coordinate training for the Vermont business community to increase awareness of 

the issue facing returning veterans with TBI. Similarly, the State TBI Program 

shares the cost of a NR Facilitator with the Department of Mental Health as a liaison to the mental health court, specifically serving veterans involved with the Department of Corrections. 

• Using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the 

California Department of Rehabilitation, the lead agency for TBI, awarded a grant 

($486,923) to the Central Coast Center for Independent Living to increase independent living service capacity and coordinate existing services and programs for 

veterans with TBI and other TBI survivors. 

• The New York TBI Program and the Brain Injury Association of New York 

partner to promote awareness, training, outreach and support to Iraq and Afghanistan military with TBI and their families. 

• Similarly, the Massachusetts Brain Injury & Statewide Specialized Community 

Services Department, known as SHIP, is partnering with the Veterans Administration, Veterans Organizations, TBI providers and the Brain Injury Association of 

Massachusetts to conducting outreach, information and referral services. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

Given State history with providing rehabilitation and community short-term and 

long-term services and supports for 25 years, NASHIA recommends the following: 

1) Linkages to services are critical at the time of hospital or rehabilitation discharge. Some States, such as Missouri and Florida, found that individuals were 

often 7–9 years post injury before accessing community services and resources. After 

implementing an early referral program linking families and individuals with service coordination at the time of hospital discharge, Missouri found that individuals 

had better outcomes than those who were not linked early in the reintegration process. 

2) Systems need to be flexible and responsive. State systems strive to provide the 

right services at the right time. Such services are provided on a short-term, longterm and episodic basis. Individuals with TBI may receive services for a period of 

time, then later, they may require similar or different services. Therefore, systems 

need to have policies that do not impose caps or timelines on services, and they 

must be able to respond to crisis or changes that may occur within the individual’s 

environment, such as a job change or a caretaker change; or changes that may occur 

as the result of the TBI, such as behavior or personality changes. A good system 

will have the capability of providing on-going supports to help prevent crisis from 

occurring. 

3) Veterans with TBI need to be empowered to choose services and supports that 

best suit their needs and enable them to live in their own homes and communities. 

As a result of the US Supreme Court Olmstead Decision affirming the rights of individuals with disabilities to live in the community, States have expanded community 

options, and the Federal Government has provided funds over the years to help 

States balance institutional and community services for individuals with disabilities. 

While directed at civilians with disabilities, these rights no doubt apply to veterans 

with disabilities as well. 

4) State and Federal systems are complex and difficult to negotiate. Individuals 

with TBI frequently request services from different systems, such as Vocational Rehabilitation, behavioral health, substance abuse, and TBI programs. They may also 

need help with housing, utilities, food, day care for their children, transportation to 

jobs and other financial assistance. Service coordination or case management is critical to facilitating the coordination and maximization of these resources. 

5) Workforce that has training and understanding of TBI. Most States that provide an array of services provide opportunities for on-going training and education 

through web training, conferences or on-site training. A few have developed core 

competencies for in-home support staff. Not all community providers that offer similar services to individuals with disabilities understand the behavioral and cognitive 

problems associated with brain injury. 

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6) In 2008, the VA began collaboration with the Administration on Aging (AoA) 

to provide an additional opportunity to State Units on Aging (SUAs) and Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) to serve veterans at risk of nursing home placement. This initiative demonstrates the willingness to coordinate with State and local agencies to 

support veterans living in the community. However, the AAAs serve primarily seniors within the States, not necessarily young adults with TBI at risk of being referred to nursing home for long-term care and supports. We believe that expanding 

this initiative to collaborate with NASHIA and State agencies that serve TBI would 

help families and veterans to locate and receive coordinated community services and 

supports. 

7) The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) Preliminary Assessment on the Readjustment 

Needs of Veterans, Servicemembers and their families notes that there is a paucity 

of information on the lifetime needs of persons with TBI in the military and civilian 

sectors and recommends additional research into protocols to manage the lifetime 

effects of TBI. NASHIA supports such research efforts and recommends that it be 

conducted in coordination with State data and resources. States have experience in 

this area. 

8) The IOM notes the critical shortage of health care specialists and that veterans 

having to wait for appropriate care remains a problem. In the meantime, families 

and veterans with TBI are calling State TBI programs for assistance. In some cases, 

when military discharge status is unsettled, veterans turn to State resources first. 

State TBI programs are often the point of contact for information and referral for 

families and returning soldiers and veterans seeking local services, especially with 

regard to the National Guard and Reserves. NASHIA supports greater collaboration 

with the civilian sector with the recruitment and training of TBI specialists. 

9) NASHIA strongly agrees with the IOM’s recommendation that DOD and VA 

improve coordination and communication among the multitude of programs that 

have been created to meet the needs of returning servicemembers and veterans. 

10) The VA Secretary stated in the March 23, 2010, report to your Committee that 

‘‘collaborations with private sector facilities are regularly used to successfully meet 

the individualized needs of Veterans and complement VA care.‘‘ This has been limited to medical care and treatment. The next step is to extend similar policies to 

community providers that offer home, community and family supports and services. 

In closing, NASHIA offers its expertise, experience and assistance to further improve the connection between community services and supports to enable veterans 

with TBI to live in their communities after receiving acute and post acute care, rehabilitation and other services through the VA. Given these difficult budget times, 

NASHIA recommends greater coordination among all Federal, State and local resources in order to improve the lives of veterans with TBI and to enable them to 

live as independently as possible. 

We applaud your leadership and efforts to address the needs of our veterans with 

TBI and their families. The Department of Defense and VA’s TBI initiatives for servicemembers and veterans will no doubt help civilians with TBI as well, so that all 

Americans with TBI, regardless of cause, will benefit from the research, education, 

care, treatment, rehabilitation and community supports carried out by these departments. 

For additional information or assistance, please contact Lorraine Wargo, Executive Director at awarg@madriver.com or Susan Vaughn, Director of Public Policy, 

at susanvaughn@mchsi.com, phone: 573–636–6946. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES M. ‘‘MASON’’ POE, SSGT USMC (RET.) 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Senator Burr, and Members of the Committee: 

My name is Mason Poe, SSGT USMC (ret), and I come from a strong military minded family. I am a medically retired SSGT after serving one week shy of a nine year 

service in our beloved United States Marine Corps. 

First and foremost, I would like to thank the veterans in which have been wounded in our previous wars and/or conflicts. They have set the high standards of care 

provided by today’s Department of Defense and our Veterans Affairs which provided 

the necessary healthcare that I needed in 2004 and still need today. 

On April 20, 2004, after being informed of the safety of a squad of Marines, my 

Marines and I were returning back to the Forward Operating Base in Haditah, Iraq, 

where I was severely wounded after our Humvee was directly hit by an Improvised 

Explosive Device. 

After being in a medically induced coma for approximately one month and bedridden for 31⁄2 months, I was wheeled out of the hospital and my recovery started 

in August 2004. Due to my significant injuries I was told I would never walk again 

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and the chances of being a father were limited. For the record, no doctor should ever 

tell a Marine he will never walk again, as I walked into this building to speak to 

our Nation’s elected officials on May 5, 2010. Furthermore, my wife and I are proud 

parents of a beautiful 101⁄2-month-old daughter. I personally find it hard to understand people who do not believe in a higher power. My faith is stronger now more 

than ever. 

After six years of recovery and 30-plus surgeries, doctors and I have come to the 

decision that on June 7, 2010, I will undergo yet another surgery at Duke University Medical Center by having a below-the-knee amputation of my right leg. 

I have undergone mostly all physical injuries. Please note; I am not a ‘‘disabled’’ 

Marine whereas I am a Marine with limitations. The doctors and non-profit organizations such as Wounded Warrior Project and Military Missions in Action from 

North Carolina can help, assist, and offer ideas and solutions to my physical limitations. However, in my particular case there is one limitation in which only the Lord 

and I can overcome. 

When I was wounded, I was thrown 40-plus feet, my flak jacket was separated 

and Kevlar helmet was displaced, which did not allow protection when I impacted 

the ground. After a field tracheotomy was performed in order to clear my airway 

I was resuscitated and was flown to Baghdad to begin my critical care. As I suffered 

from a skull fracture, a stint was placed in my brain to reduce the swelling. This 

leads to why I am here. 

Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI, is an injury known as the ‘‘unseen injury’’ for 

many reasons. The average person will never be able to tell without speaking to you 

for a period of time that you may have problems accomplishing everyday tasks. 

Please note, Doctors can fix a broken bone but there is no known cure from TBI. 

I was screened by the DOD for TBI prior to discharge but the issues regarding TBI 

have been addressed by the VA. 

Every day I struggle with this injury. I have trouble remembering things such as: 

meetings, phone calls, grocery lists, times to pick up my daughter, and remembering 

people’s names. 

Fortunately, Marines are taught from day one to adapt and overcome, therefore 

I have learned ways to accomplish my tasks successfully. 

Transitioning to civilian life has been trying because I am no longer physically 

able to do the things I used to. The reason I am speaking before this congressional 

committee today and testifying before you is to inform you of my particular case and 

care that I have received. I am satisfied with how I have been treated at my local 

Veterans Affairs hospital. 

My case manager, Ms. Collette Wallace, keeps me informed by calling and reminding me of my appointments on a regular basis. I also receive letters of 

verification of my appointments. I have even attended classes at the VA regarding 

ways to accommodate my memory issues and have successfully completed a college 

course in Introduction to Business Administration at my local community college. 

I have considered returning to the school atmosphere, however that one course I 

took was more time consuming than I expected as I struggled to recall information 

required in order to pass each test. As the number of veterans needing medical care 

from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom increase the number of case 

managers at our VA facilities needs to as well. 

The VA has provided me with a PDA and recorder to assist me in overcoming 

some of these memory issues. Whereas these devices have assisted me I cannot rely 

on them 100% of the time. Luckily, I have a wonderful wife to help me remember 

names as well as help me around the house with any other limitations I may suffer 

from. 

My local VA hospital in Durham, North Carolina has seen to it that my medical 

treatments have been and continue to be satisfactorily met and a supportive reassurance for me. I know that I am not traveling this road to recovery on my own. 

However, I have been informed by other veterans throughout the Nation that all 

veterans do not receive the same satisfactory care such as mine. 

Other organizations that have made it possible for me to heal are Wounded Warrior Project and Military Missions in Action. Wounded Warrior Project has called 

once a month to check in with my health. They are always asking ways to help with 

my transition and recovery. My case is difficult as I am 100% permanent and total 

‘‘disabled’’ and have loss use of my lower right limb and suffer from double vision 

but have not actually lost my limb. Military Missions in Action realized the physical 

help I needed and has made it possible to assist my wife more in the care of our 

daughter. Military Missions in Action from North Carolina has made a huge impact 

on my quality of life. I would not be able to undergo this upcoming surgery if they 

had not added a master bedroom downstairs. 

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In the future I hope to have a successful service contracting business where I can 

still honorably serve our country. I look forward to actively being involved with my 

daughter and wife with a prosthetic leg. I hope to have started a cycling team for 

Military Missions in Action in order to successfully recover and improve the quality 

of life of other wounded servicemembers. 

I would like to thank those elected officials in which are striving to improve the 

lives of my fellow Marines and servicemen and women that suffer from wounds in 

our current conflicts abroad. I hope that our current administration will show the 

priority of healthcare needed to all our veterans which ultimately allows all Americans to live free. 

My final thought to the Committee is regardless of the amount of cutbacks this 

country is facing on a day-to-day basis, can we really afford cutting back the 

healthcare provided to these veterans. Who is going to take long term care of them 

after they have taken care of us and given this country its freedoms? 

MRS. KRISTIN M. POE

Washington, DC, May 5, 2010. 

Hon. DANIEL K. AKAKA, 

Chairman, 

Hon. RICHARD BURR, 

Ranking Member, 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC. 

DEAR CHAIRMAN AKAKA AND RANKING MEMBER BURR: ‘‘I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.’’ This is what Mason said to me as he told me he had been recalled and 

volunteered to deploy to Iraq. On April 20, 2004, I found out his angels were ten 

feet tall and bullet proof. This day has changed our lives forever. 

Mason and I met here in DC at a Carolina vs. Capitals hockey game. Although 

warned not to date Marines because they would break your heart, Mason managed 

to steal mine. If I had to choose one word to describe Mason it would be ‘‘active.’’ 

There was not one moment where he would sit still; we could hardly get through 

a movie. Mason volunteered at a fire department in Maryland while stationed at 

Marine Barracks under Presidential security. I always knew to bring homework 

while spending time with him because consequently there was going to be time 

where he was either running a fire call or dealing with Marines. Mason got honorably discharged June 2003 and was voluntarily recalled December 2003. 

As Mason’s best friend insisted upon picking me up and driving to Dunn, NC, just 

to hang out with a group of friends, I briefly thought Mason had come home early 

from his deployment. As we drove up to his parent’s house, my stomach sank when 

I saw the amount of cars outside the house. His mother walked up to me and murmured those words no one wants to hear, ‘‘Mason has been wounded. He is in critical condition.’’ As the days went by we learned more of his injuries and the list 

of them just kept growing. Sandstorms kept his aircraft from leaving Baghdad Hospital and it seemed nothing was in our favor. 

Finally, Mason arrived at Landstuhl Army Hospital in Germany a few days later. 

However due to the severity of the case and the only neurosurgeon at the other base 

hospital in Ramstein, Mason had to be transferred to Homburg, a private German 

hospital. Things were looking better until we got a call saying Mason had taken a 

turn for the worse and the military was flying his parents to Germany to say their 

‘‘Good-Byes.’’ Since we were not married at the time I was not a priority to go. Luckily Mason’s brother, Gunner Poe, was able to get it worked out so that, although 

I had to take a civilian flight, I was able to accompany his parents to Germany. 

Mason stayed at Homburg hospital for a month. We were only allowed to visit 

him for two hours a day. As you can imagine the 22 hours between visits seemed 

like a lifetime. The Fischer House was an enormous help while we were in Germany. We had an affordable room, free use of the kitchen, drivers to the grocery 

store and I even finished my finals using their computer. 

As Mason began to heal plans were made to get him back to the states and although our prayers were being answered we knew he still had a long way to go. 

Mason was just coming out of the medically induced coma at the end of the May. 

Mason spent the next month in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland surrounded 

by friends and family. There he made enough progress to be sent to an inpatient 

rehabilitation facility in North Carolina. Mason still had fixators in both legs and 

could not move by himself but the doctors felt he was ready to start therapy. 

While at Southeastern Medical Center, Mason continued making great improvements. He surpassed all of the doctors’ expectations. By the end of the June he was 

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walking about 100 feet on a walker. From the day he left the hospital until today 

he has never stopped fighting. He is one of the most determined people I know. 

Mason was not medically discharged until May 2008 when most of his healing had 

come to a standpoint. I firmly believe that one of the main reasons mason had such 

good care was the military allowed him to stay active duty until he was thoroughly 

healed. This gave him options to find the best therapy to fit his needs. 

Although the transition from the military to civilian life has been tough, Mason 

continues to find ways to stay active. He is involved with many civic organizations 

like the Rotary, Scottish Rites, Masonic Lodge, and the Shriners. Mason just recently cofounded a Marine Corps League in Dunn, North Carolina which also helps 

with fundraisers like Toys for Tots. 

As Mason mentioned the organization Military Missions in Action has been a God 

send for us. They have made it possible for us to adapt our house to fit Mason’s 

needs. This allows him to be able to take care of his daughter, move comfortably 

around the house, and have a peace of mind for his recovery in June. 

Many people may ask me if Mason is the same person as before he left for Iraq. 

Ironically, the answer lies within the Marine Corps saying. Although he has had 

to adapt and overcome a lot of physical and emotional limitations Mason still continues to be just as active and determined as he has always been. 

Sincerely, 

KRISTIN M. POE. 

Æ