Study to track burn outcomes
"Come here, Jones, come here!"

An officer yelled to Staff Sgt. Lee Jones as Jones bolted from the burning Humvee. He started running and then dropped to the ground and rolled to try to douse the flames that engulfed his face, hands and legs. His truck had hit a roadside bomb. The three squad members in the truck with him died in the explosion. Jones, of the 82nd Airborne, was soon evacuated to a field hospital and then to Germany. But he was in a coma—the flames had eaten away the skin from nearly half his body—and doctors didn't give him long to live. (03/09/2009)

Brain-injury experts meet to shape agenda for care, research
Creating a registry of veterans who have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and tracking long-term effects of the condition were among the priorities outlined at an international conference of TBI experts hosted by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Nov. 17 - 18, 2008. (12/05/2008)

Putting Polytrauma Care 'on the Map'
In a study to be presented at a national VA meeting in December, investigators at VA's Rehabilitation Outcomes Research Center (RORC) in Gainesville, Fla., used specialized geographic software to track access to VA care for traumatically wounded veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The findings will help VA planners decide where to locate services for current and future cohorts of veterans. (10/22/2008)

Future directions in PTSD research and care
In a recent survey by the RAND Corporation of nearly 2,000 veterans of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, half the respondents reported they had a friend who was killed or seriously wounded. Nearly half—45 percent—said they saw dead or seriously injured non-combatants. Not surprisingly, the rate of respondents who met the diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression was relatively high, at 18.5 percent. Based on these data, RAND estimates that some 300,000 veterans who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from PTSD or major depression. (06/19/2008)

National VA Research, May 11-17, 2008
Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. James B. Peake has proclaimed the week of May 11 as National VA Research Week. During that week, VA facilities around the country will highlight 60 years of innovation and discovery.

"The VA research program is the foundation for advancements in Veterans' health care and represents the promise of a better life," said Secretary Peake.

Check this announcement for further information, including how to find out what's happening in your local area. (05/08/2008)

Understanding the effects of blasts on the brain
It's a scientific question driven by the hard realities of today's global war on terror: What happens to the brain of someone exposed to a blast?
The answer is likely to come not from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but from research labs thousands of miles away—such as that of biomedical engineer Pamela VandeVord, PhD, with VA and Wayne State University in Detroit. She is one of a small but growing number of researchers studying the biological effects of blasts on the brain. (04/29/2008)

Brain-computer interfaces: Has science fiction become reality?
... It was hard for even the most serious science journalists to ignore the fascination surrounding the researchers' stunning achievement. The scientists had enabled a 25-year-old man with quadriplegia to operate a computer cursor and perform other tasks solely through his thoughts. The technology, called BrainGate, uses a tiny sensor implanted in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. The sensor, about the size of Lincoln's head on a penny, has 100 hair-thin electrodes ... (01/25/2008)

Special Rehabilitation Journal Issue on Traumatic Brain Injury
The November 2007 issue of The Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development (JRRD) is a special, single-topic issue on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and polytrauma. Focused on the diagnosis and treatment of TBI, this issue examines the clinical characteristics of military personnel returning from combat and describes several healthcare models that are providing care and support to them and their families. (12/04/2007)

New bionic ankle debuts at Providence VA - Now with VIDEO
The first powered ankle-foot prosthesis, an important advance for lowerlimb amputees, was unveiled July 23 at the Providence VA Medical Center. See the new video as Garth Stewart, a 24-year-old Army veteran who lost his left leg below the knee following an injury in Iraq, demonstrated the new prosthesis. (09/04/2007)

Healing the injured brain: How can research help?
"Your skull gets pounded against your Kevlar [helmet]. Your brain gets tossed around like an egg in a bucket of water," is how Retired Army Pfc. Chris Lynch, who suffered a brain injury during training in 2000, explained his injury in a recent interview with the American Forces Press Service. Through intensive therapy, Lynch has recovered much of his ability to do everyday tasks, and now reaches out to newly brain-injured troops to offer support. (07/18/2007)

Fatty Liver Disease: A New Epidemic?
Hardly a day passes without media reports of America’s skyrocketing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Far fewer people, though, are familiar with another disease—closely linked to the first two—that experts say is also becoming an epidemic. (06/19/2007)

Evidence-based Prosthetics is Focus of New Workshops
Robert Gailey, PhD, PT, is a physical therapist and investigator at the Miami VA Medical Center, studying the best ways to identify the functional deficits of amputees.

His research is one of the driving forces behind a new series of workshops for prosthetists and physical therapists throughout VA.

"We want to bring VA practitioners up to speed on the latest technology that soldiers are receiving in the military rehabilitation facilities," says Gailey. (04/06/2007)

Probing the Benefits of Green Tea
Is green tea really a health elixir, as many believe? And, of particular interest to many scientists: Can it fight cancer?

After studying the topic for 16 years, VA scientist Santosh Katiyar, PhD, MS, is convinced that green tea, because of its rich polyphenol content, is among the most potent tumor-inhibitors that nature provides.

In the Oct. 16 online edition of the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, Katiyar reviewed the latest biomedical findings on green tea and skin cancer... (12/22/2006)

Senate Hearing on VA Research: Investing Today to Guide Tomorrow's Treatment
(4/27/06) A new type of prosthetic hand was demonstrated today at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Chairman Larry Craig even got to use the device himself as electrodes were hooked to his upper forearm. Within a few seconds he was able to have the prosthetic hand hold a glass of water.

Craig is an advocate for more research and development by VA scientists, especially to meet the needs of those who have been injured in combat. (04/27/2006)

Research Aims to Prevent Outbreaks Due to Increasingly Resistant Hospital Germ
For decades, hospitals have contended with a potentially nasty germ called Clostridium difficile. The bacterium tends to proliferate and cause disease in hospital patients who acquire it after having been on antibiotics, which disrupt protective normal bowel flora. Infection with C. difficile is one of the most common hospital acquired infections worldwide, and in the United States alone it causes some 400,000 cases of diarrhea and colitis each year in hospital patients. (02/28/2006)

Study Finds Angioplasty More Cost-Effective than Bypass Surgery
A study involving hundreds of high-risk heart patients at 16 Veterans Affairs medical centers found that balloon angioplasty was less costly than heart bypass surgery, but just as likely to keep patients alive.

The 445 veterans in the study had severe blockages or narrowing of the arteries carrying blood to the heart. They were randomly assigned to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)—also known as angioplasty—or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. After five years of follow-up, costs were significantly lower for the angioplasty group, and the five-year survival rate was slightly better for angioplasty, although the difference in favor of angioplasty was not statistically significant.

"Angioplasty maintains a significant cost advantage with no adverse impact on survival rates, even after five years," said lead author Kevin T. Stroupe, PhD, a health economist at the Hines, Ill., VA Medical Center. (01/21/2006)

Prosthetics of future will mesh body, mind and machine

Remember the 1970s TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man”? It featured a test pilot who suffered horrific injuries in a crash and was “rebuilt” with bionic parts. This made him a superman who could lift cars and leap 40 feet in the air.

The actual science of prosthetics has a more down-to-earth goal: to restore independence and mobility to amputees and enable them to do everyday things most of us take for granted—walking, running, enjoying hobbies, using a pen or fork, holding a child. But the technology emerging in labs today—including several VA sites—is no less dramatic than that depicted in the old TV show. (10/26/2005)

US News and World Report Rates VA Hospital Care - "Top-Notch"
In the July 18, 2005 issue of US News and World Report, VA hospital care is touted as often "the best around." The article attributes this high rating to the transformation of the VA health care system over the past decade. Beginning in the l990's under the leadership of Dr. Kenneth Kizer, the Veterans Health Administration instituted a performance and accountability system that was tied directly to the quality of patient care and outcomes. (07/02/2005)

Shingles Vaccine Proves Effective in Large VA Trial
In one of the largest adult vaccine trials ever, researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and colleagues have shown that an experimental vaccine against shingles prevented about 51 percent of cases of shingles, a painful nerve and skin infection, and dramatically reduced its severity and complications in vaccinated persons who got shingles. The findings appear in the June 2, 2005, New England Journal of Medicine. (06/02/2005)

ALS clinical trial follows promising animal study
Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, will be recruited starting in late March for a VA-funded nationwide study testing the safety of sodium phenylbutyrate as a life-extending treatment. The drug, which has been used for years as a cancer therapy, significantly extended the lives of ALS mice in a recent study. (03/21/2005)

VA continues to play key role in PTSD research
Recent reports indicate that as many as 10 to 20 percent of service personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan may be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), presenting future healthcare challenges for VA. Until relatively recently, a diagnosis of PTSD was rarely made and generally only applied to veterans. (02/28/2005)

VA patients receive better care than non-VA patients
VA patients are significantly more likely than similar patients in the general population to receive recommended preventive and chronic care, according to a study released in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (12/21/2004)

Study Urges Better Blood-Pressure Control in Seniors
A review study led by Sarwat I. Chaudhry, MD, a fellow at the West Haven VAMC, backs recent recommendations from a national committee that urged doctors to be more proactive in treating systolic hypertension in older adults. (09/14/2004)

Aging
Americans are living longer because of better heath care prevention and innovative medical technologies and new medications. By 2030, the number of older Americans (60 years and older) will have more than doubled to 70 million – one in every five. (09/01/2004)

New Limb-Loss Center to Incorporate Robotics, Tissue Engineering
...the new "Center for Rebuilding, Regenerating and Restoring Function After Limb Loss" will provide patient care and conduct research in tissue engineering, neurotechnology, materials science, robotics, and advanced surgical techniques. VA expects the center to significantly improve outcomes for recent combat-injured veterans and other VA patients who have lost limbs. (08/15/2004)

Skin Cancer
Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, with more than one million cases diagnosed every year. Most diagnosed skin cancers are related to sun exposure. (08/01/2004)

Military Deployment and Coming Home
More than 250,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the Gulf region. Some will return wounded, and some will return sick. As Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Anthony Principi stated, "We have to make sure that our system is capable of providing care for them. We have learned that every battlefield poses unique dangers. (07/01/2004)

Men's Health
In general, men have less awareness about their overall health, and there are poorer and fewer health education and health programs that focus on men than women. This is important because in the 1920s life expectancy for men and women was about the same, but over the years this has changed – men’s life expectancy is now more than 10% lower than that of women. (06/01/2004)

Hepatitis C
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the leading cause of liver disease in the United States and is a common cause of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (cancer of the liver). HCV also is the primary reason for liver transplants in the United States. (05/01/2004)