Exposure to explosive blasts is a significant risk factor for brain trauma among exposed persons. Although the effects of large blasts on the brain are well understood, the effects of smaller blasts such as those that occur during military training are less understood. This small, low-level blast exposure also varies highly according to military occupation and training tempo, with some units experiencing few exposures over the course of several years whereas others experience hundreds within a few weeks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlast-related mild traumatic brain injury (blast-mTBI) can result in a spectrum of persistent symptoms leading to substantial functional impairment and reduced quality of life. Clinical evaluation and discernment from other conditions common to military service can be challenging and subject to patient recall bias and the limitations of available assessment measures. The need for objective biomarkers to facilitate accurate diagnosis, not just for symptom management and rehabilitation but for prognostication and disability compensation purposes is clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Cumulative low-level blast exposure during military training may be a significant occupational hazard, increasing the risk of poor long-term outcomes in brain function. US Public Law 116-92 section 717 mandates that US Department of Defense agencies document the blast exposure of each Service member to help inform later disability and health care decisions. However, which empirical measures of training blast exposure, such as the number of incidents, peak overpressure, or impulse, best inform changes in the neurobehavioral symptoms reflecting brain health have not been established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecial Operations Forces (SOF) Service members endure frequent exposures to blast and overpressure mechanisms given their high training tempo. The link between cumulative subconcussive blasts on short- and long-term neurological impairment is largely understudied. Neurodegenerative diseases such as brain dysfunction, cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia may develop with chronic exposures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 1970 Henri Ellenberger called attention to the previously unrecognized importance of Franz Anton Mesmer's "animal magnetism" in the rise of psychodynamic psychology in the West. This article takes the next step of tracing the course of events that led to Puységur's discovery of magnetic somnambulism and describing the tumultuous social and political climate into which it was introduced in 1784. Beginning from the secret and private publication of his first Mémoires, only a few copies of which remain today, the original core of his discovery is identified and the subsequent development of its implications are examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The adherence to and effectiveness and safety of a timed, electronic, assessment-driven potassium-replacement protocol (TARP) were compared with an electronic nurse-driven replacement protocol (NRP) are reported.
Methods: A retrospective observational study was conducted in a community hospital evaluating protocol adherence, effectiveness, and safety for 2 potassium-replacement protocols. All adults on medical units with an order for potassium replacement per protocol during the 3-month trial periods were reviewed.
This article is about the clash of two explanatory paradigms, each attempting to account for the same data of human experience. In the first half of the nineteenth century, physiologists investigated reflex actions and applied a recently coined word, "automatism," to describe actions which, although seeming to arise from higher centers, actually result from automatic reaction to sensory stimuli. Experiments with spinal reflexes led to the investigation of the reflex action of the brain or "cerebral automatisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF