Certified brain-injury specialist Clint Pearman leads an audience of American Gold Star Mothers on Friday, June 22 at the Tibor Rubin VA Medical Center in an exercise to examine how individuals often misunderstand what a traumatic brain injury is and is not.
The group of mothers, dressed in all white with teal lanyards, met at the center from different parts of the country to learn about the main issues impacting military personnel.
“As part of this week’s American Gold Star Mother annual convention,” said Sue Pollard, national president of the nonprofit, “we wanted to do something a little different and avail ourselves of the opportunity to learn from experts and gain more understanding about a subject close to our hearts. As the month of June has been designated by the U.S. Senate as [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)] Awareness Month, the idea of our subject was very clear. By the way, as you can tell, the color for PTSD is teal. So, you might notice that we have used that color liberally in this convention.”
Over the past five years, Pollard explained, the nonprofit has donated close to $200,000 and volunteered 60,000 hours in VAs across the United States.
“We are in a position where we regularly have the opportunity to interact with military folks and veterans-service organizations,” she said. “It is valuable to our understanding that we learn what we can about problems they face daily. [Traumatic brain injury (TBI)], PTSD and veteran suicide are a few of these pressing issues.”
Suicide
Charmaine Lowe, clinical psychologist at the naval hospital at Camp Pendleton, discussed how suicide impacts service members.
According to the civilian data she shared, in 2016 there were 45,000 lives lost to suicide.
“When we look at the veterans’ suicide rate,” she said, “it makes up about 18 percent of completed adult suicide, and this is about 8.5 percent of the adult population.”
In addition, Lowe explained that the military population is 10 times more likely to commit suicide than the civilian population.
However, the American Gold Star Mothers have promoted a characteristic that Lowe hopes struggling service members will soon emulate.
“That’s the thing that I really appreciate about your group,” she explained. “Even through your challenges, you manage to stick together and really help each other and empower each other to do really positive things. So that is a part of resilience. That’s what we are looking for more into the military population.”
Post-traumatic stress disorder
According to Long Beach VA neurologist and psychiatrist Michael Hollifield, PTSD did not become a recognized disorder until the early 1980s.
To help the audience understand PTSD, Hollifield compared the illness to that of a bacterial infection.
“Some people survive them, and some people have problems with them,” he said. “Think of traumatic experiences as the same thing.”
Ultimately, Hollifield emphasized how the disorder has a larger impact than people think.
“It is a disorder that affects the whole mind and body just like other disorders,” he said, “and that is how we have to look at it.”
Traumatic brain injury
Certified brain-injury specialist Clint Pearman introduced himself and explained how he was going to use his drill-instructor voice and opt out of speaking into the microphone.
Pearman served 31 years in the U.S. Marines, and after his retirement, he became fascinated with the controversial aspects of TBIs.
“I got exposed to something that changed my whole mindset,” Pearman said. “I got exposed to how important this TBI education is and how someone needs to be advocating for that whole thing.”
He then went on to list statistics and numbers as evidence.
“379,519,” Pearman yelled, “service members reported to medical since 2000 […] and got officially diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. Who can tell me what is wrong with that number? Who says it is too low? Absolutely. That number is ridiculously too low, and to show you how low it is, we are going to do a little experiment.”
To begin the experiment, Pearman asked the audience to stand up if they have ever been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury.
“Out of this group, […] about 10 ladies, moms knew they had a TBI– now watch this,” he laughed. “Out of you still sitting, this usually works, how many of you have ever had a blow […] to the head or body– meaning you hit your body hard enough or your head hard enough where you got knocked out? If that has ever happened to you, raise your hand. If you raised your hand, please stand up, because you can join the TBI crowd. That is a TBI, moms. […] Out of you guys that are still sitting, how many of you have ever hit your head or your body hard enough, and after hitting your head or your body, you were dazed, confused or a little disoriented? […] If you raised your hand, join the TBI crowd.”
From the results, Pearman explained that there are three official classifications of a TBI– loss of consciousness, alteration of consciousness and post traumatic amnesia.
The experiment, according to Pearman, ended up mirroring the TBI controversy.
“Look around the room,” he said. “There were only 10 moms standing that knew they had a TBI. When in fact, here is what we know– about 20 percent of the population has had TBIs. They know. But it seems like there is another 70 percent that did not know, like most of you that stood up.”
Pearman added that most people are not aware of the issue.
“The epidemic of undiagnosed TBIs presents a significant and worsening public health challenge, because it is so silent and secret,” he said. “Most people do not know that they have one, and those that have one are not really saying anything about it.”
Despite the ongoing controversy, the American Gold Star Mothers now have the information to speak up in the future.
“You guys know, and you can say something about it,” Pearman said. “People are going to listen. I know they are going to listen, because I got lieutenant generals calling me. They don’t call me, but they do when I am speaking to the American Gold Star Mothers, because they are scared. That means that you guys have power, and you should use it.”
