He cannot speak and can barely emit sound or move any part of his body, and sometimes it's as if the striking size of his eyes is a desperate attempt to let others understand who he is, to let them see inside his mind, because his brain can carry out so little in the way of communication. Full Story »
Posted by Beth Wellington
The author details the case of Phillips, whose recovery stalled at VA centers, his family to get his care in a private facility covered. The author suggest that his case and otheres like "suggests that the military medical system just wasn't prepared for the prevalence of brain injuries among its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. "
A fascinating yet disturbing study, this article delved too superficially into the medical ethics of spending vast amounts of money on what would appear to be a lost cause. The article avoided cliche, however, and concentrated instead upon unsentimental reportage of this man's desperate situation and the research subject he is providing neuroscientists in exchange for his treatment. This must have been a grueling a story to write. Good background information on new modalities and therapies for addressing catastrophic brain injury. Well done narrative journalism.
This story humanizes the tragic aspects of this war. Most appalling to me was learning that besides the 900 "serious" traumatic brain injuries from this war, there are 300,000 other TBIs. I would have liked to hear more about those--how serious are they and what is the long-term prognosis for these soldiers? Does anybody really know?
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