Helping soldiers who suffered traumatic brain injuries - WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-

Helping soldiers who suffered traumatic brain injuries

Army Specialist Donald Jarvis cleared roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was on patrol in Afghanistan in February when a bomb exploded under his vehicle.

"Causing the vehicle to roll onto the driver's side, which is my side. I sustained a right knee injury at that time," Jarvis said.

But what he didn't know until about a month later-- he had also suffered a mild traumatic brain injury or TBI.

"When I got to Germany, I started noticing the memory problems and everything else," Jarvis said.

Symptoms of a TBI can include headaches, sleep disturbances and problems with balance, concentration and attention.

Nearly 245,000 men and women who have served in U.S. forces have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries since 2000. The majority of those cases were mild.

"Sometime it's difficult to diagnose unless you see a specialist, but once it's diagnosed properly, you can recover 100 percent," said Dr. Heechin Chae, the director of the traumatic brain injury program at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital.

Specialist Jarvis still struggles with headaches, sensitivity to light and has trouble sleeping, but thanks to his treatment at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital in Virginia, his memory is getting better.

"As far as speech therapy goes, I'm working with different techniques to improve my memory like associations and things of that nature," Jarvis said.

He hopes his intensive treatment will make it easier to adjust to life when he returns home to Massachusetts in a few months.

Experts say they're seeing more traumatic brain injuries in service members because of the type of warfare the U.S. has been engaged in, but doctors are also better at detecting these injuries now then in the past.