Aug 15, 2018 06:44 PM
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...eir-brains
EXCERPT: Chris Ferrari was just 18 the first time he balanced a rocket launcher on his right shoulder and aimed it at a practice target. [...] The report is loud enough to burst the eardrums of anyone not wearing military-grade hearing protection. And the blast wave from the weapon is so powerful it feels like a whole-body punch.
. . . Studies show that troops who repeatedly fire powerful, shoulder-launched weapons can experience short-term problems with memory and thinking. They may also feel nauseated, fatigued and dizzy. In short, they have symptoms like those of a concussion. It's still not clear whether firing these weapons can lead to long-term brain damage. But Chris and [buddy] Daniel suspect that, for them, it may have.
[...] Back then, in the 1990s, the military pretty much assumed a fighter's brain was fine unless there was some external sign of injury. That was because, at the time, no one really understood how an invisible blast wave could damage the brain without leaving a mark, says Tracie Lattimore, who directs the Army's traumatic brain injury program. "The science wasn't up to speed," she says. "It just didn't exist."
But since 2007, Lattimore says, the Department of Defense has spent about a billion dollars studying traumatic brain injuries, including those caused by blast exposure. At first, the research focused on bomb blasts, especially those from the improvised explosive devices that had become common in Iraq and Afghanistan. But over time, Lattimore says, the military's research has expanded beyond IEDs to include the effects of blasts from weapons like the one Chris and Daniel shot.
"If you talk to us in a year from now, I think we're going to have exponential growth in our knowledge coming out of these current studies and our future studies," Lattimore says. Eventually, that could help the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have fired these weapons in the past couple of decades....
MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...eir-brains
EXCERPT: Chris Ferrari was just 18 the first time he balanced a rocket launcher on his right shoulder and aimed it at a practice target. [...] The report is loud enough to burst the eardrums of anyone not wearing military-grade hearing protection. And the blast wave from the weapon is so powerful it feels like a whole-body punch.
. . . Studies show that troops who repeatedly fire powerful, shoulder-launched weapons can experience short-term problems with memory and thinking. They may also feel nauseated, fatigued and dizzy. In short, they have symptoms like those of a concussion. It's still not clear whether firing these weapons can lead to long-term brain damage. But Chris and [buddy] Daniel suspect that, for them, it may have.
[...] Back then, in the 1990s, the military pretty much assumed a fighter's brain was fine unless there was some external sign of injury. That was because, at the time, no one really understood how an invisible blast wave could damage the brain without leaving a mark, says Tracie Lattimore, who directs the Army's traumatic brain injury program. "The science wasn't up to speed," she says. "It just didn't exist."
But since 2007, Lattimore says, the Department of Defense has spent about a billion dollars studying traumatic brain injuries, including those caused by blast exposure. At first, the research focused on bomb blasts, especially those from the improvised explosive devices that had become common in Iraq and Afghanistan. But over time, Lattimore says, the military's research has expanded beyond IEDs to include the effects of blasts from weapons like the one Chris and Daniel shot.
"If you talk to us in a year from now, I think we're going to have exponential growth in our knowledge coming out of these current studies and our future studies," Lattimore says. Eventually, that could help the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have fired these weapons in the past couple of decades....
MORE: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...eir-brains