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A Defense Department study on the benefits of surfing for
patients with post-traumatic stress. A clinical tracking tool used
to manage patient care. An advanced electroencephalogram and eye
tracker.
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September 15, 2017 - A computer screen displays a neurocognitive eye
tracker used in determining potential traumatic brain injuries at
Naval Medical Center San Diego in California. (DoD photo by EJ Hersom)
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The traumatic brain injury clinic at Naval Medical Center San
Diego and the Naval Health Research Center at Naval Base Point Loma
in San Diego are developing and using cutting-edge research to
better help service members, their family members and retirees.
At the research center, Kristen Walter is conducting DoD's first
research study of its kind on the psychological and physical effects
of a surf therapy program for patients with post-traumatic stress
disorder and other issues. Almost 70 active duty and reserve
component patients from all service branches, primarily the Marine
Corps and the Navy, participated in the study.
“Initial
results suggest that both PTSD and depression symptoms improve for
those affected with the disorders,” Walter said. “We’ve also found
our strongest effects are improvements in positive effect and
decreases in negative effect. We assess individuals before and after
each surf therapy session.”
After this first study, she
added, she and her team will look into not only the effects not only
of surfing therapy, but also of hiking and other recreational
therapies that would be accessible for more patients. She said she
has personally noticed the change in the patients.
Sense of Community
“There’s definitely a sense of community here in addition to the
surf therapy," she added. “It improves mood, makes people feel
better -- more connected to the environment and also to other
people.”
Patients typically undergo standard
psychotherapies for psychological disorders, but recreational
outlets offer them an alternative, Walter said.
“Some people
don’t benefit from our standard treatment," she explained. "Getting
people actively engaged in their environment, doing things that
matter to them -- that’s incredibly important for mental and
physical health. It’s really important to study those effects.”
The team designed the algorithm for the clinical tracking tool
with Navy Seal patients because of the Seals’ high operations tempo,
said Dr. Lars Hungerford, senior clinical research director for the
Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, which oversees the
research at the TBI clinic.
“We created an algorithm and a
tool so that we can screen them while they’re still overseas so
we’ll know how many people we’ll need to see [and] get them set up
so that when they hit the ground here, they’re all set up and
running. We can just move on from there,” he said.
On the Same Page
While a patient is undergoing treatment at the hospital, Hungerford
said, all of the different specialists who see the patient will put
in their notes and appointments and see the patient’s goals so that
everyone is on the same page.
“For
example, when we first see a patient, we do an intake, meet as a
team and come up with a treatment plan for what that person needs,"
he said. “They need occupational therapy, speech, neuropysch -- that
gets put into the referral and gets kicked over to the individual
providers, and then they write up their notes and we track all of
their symptoms in the system.
Coordinating Care
“We see they have a headache
goal,” he continued. “According to the tracking system, we’ve met,
and we’re about halfway through the headache goal, but now they’re
complaining more about memory problems, so things might shift as we
go along. You can capture that quickly by looking at this system,
and [all of the providers] can communicate and coordinate care.”
The eye tracker is used to
measure saccade response, or reaction time and speed of response,
Hungerford said. The new wireless EEG prototype is portable and
doesn’t require liquid or gel.
“With the old EEGs, you had to
put on a lot of gel, and patients left with a goopy head and had to
go home and take a shower,” he said. “With this prototype, we can
apply it within a few minutes and get a nice reading of the EEG
waves. When the sensors touch skin, they don’t have to go through
hair. They’re flat for comfort and don’t have prongs. It’s advanced
technology.”
The new fusion study is using both the eye
tracking and EEG at the same time. “That’s probably something that
hasn’t been done,” Hungerford said. Looking at the different
modalities that diagnose TBIs and comparing what the eyes are doing
to what the brain is doing to what the MRI reveals combine to
achieve a better understanding of what is going on with the
patients, he added.
By Shannon Collins
D0D News
Copyright 2018
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