Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1000484
As an optometrist, I have often taken care of people who have suffered from injuries resulting from traffic accidents, and who have experienced other traumatic brain injuries too. Yet, I have never considered the group of soldiers injured in war in my practice – the idea seemed too remote to me. I was wondering if any attention was devoted to injured veterans in Poland, a country that is, after all, involved in armed conflicts. I sent dozens of e-mails with inquiries, I had many conversations with veterans, soldiers, presidents of foundations, doctors, and representatives of many state institutions. The result was two different views. The first was beautiful. It appeared that there was no such thing as TBIs in Poland. Nobody had any problems, and the health care system worked perfectly. The second offered a bit different image of the reality, where soldiers and veterans do wrestle with problems, starting from diagnostics and ending with rehabilitation. The information I collected pushed me to act further, which resulted in an opportunity to work with and for veterans as part of my professional interests and – to my greatest satisfaction – my master's project. This article aims to present the issues related to TBIs, to cover the impact of brain injuries on visual-motor disorders, the potential rehabilitation solutions, and to discuss a concept of multidisciplinary support offered to the injured. Although the article is devoted to veterans and soldiers, it's important to bear in mind thousands of civilians who sustain injuries of such type every year. But FRAG OUT! is mainly a tactical magazine, that's why the text focuses mostly on the occurrence of TBIs among military men. Optometrists have plenty of options to provide aid in the area of post-injury care. The profession has been practiced in Poland for many years now – and according to the dictionary definition: optometry is an autonomic, taught, and regulated health care profession, and a person pursuing this profession deals with examination of the eyes for defects, provision of vision improvement solutions, and diagnostics and follow-up measures in the field of eye diseases and rehabilitation of the visual system (1). The said rehabilitation is called optometric visual training. It can be applied in the area of visual impartment involving e.g.: squint, poor eyesight, accommodation (ability to change the eyes' optical power to maintain a clear image or focus of objects at a close distance), oculomotor skills, learning, and reading. But when visual impairment results from a brain injury originating from an accident, a stroke, post-surgery complications, or with some different neurological background, we can speak of optometric rehabilitation. F General information In Poland, we seem to be rather familiar with the term of PTSD. If we enter it in a web browser, we'll get a lot of results that will help us understand the mechanism behind PTSDs and learn of the possibilities to receive help. It's quite important to add that a PTSD is not a disorder common to soldiers only; it may actually affect anyone as a result of a trauma one has gone through. TBI, in turn, appears to be something very exotic, unfortunately. This article should be helpful in understanding the complex problem of traumatic brain injuries – and their consequences. In 2009, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Department of Defense defined TBI as: a traumatically induced structural injury and/or physiological disruption of brain function as a result of an external force, and is indicated by new onset or worsening of at least one of the following clinical signs immediately following the event: 3 any period of loss of or a decreased level of consciousness; 3 any loss of memory for events immediately before or after the injury (post-traumatic amnesia); 3 any alteration in mental state at the time of the injury (confusion, disorientation, slowed thinking, alteration of consciousness/mental state, etc.); 3 neurological deficits (weakness, loss of balance, change in vision), praxis (inability to perform intentional movement), paresis/plegia (simultaneous paralysis of both limbs below the level of damage of the spinal cord), sensory loss (disorders of: concentration, sensitivity to stimuli, analysis of