Therapy helps wounded emerge from comas

Therapy helps wounded emerge from comas

By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Thursday Jul 29, 2010 10:38:38 EDT

TAMPA, Fla. — Army Ranger Cory Remsburg was thrown like a rag doll into an Afghanistan canal Oct. 1 by the blast from a 500-pound roadside bomb, the right side of his head caved in by shrapnel.

After a medical evacuation and six surgeries at military hospitals in Afghanistan, Germany and Bethesda, Md., Remsburg arrived at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital here in November in a vegetative state.

Doctors, therapists, family and friends rallied to help with Remsburg’s therapy. They massaged joints, stretched limbs and exercised muscles. They stimulated him with drugs, aromas and episodes of the TV comedy Scrubs. They questioned, commanded and cajoled — anything to jump-start his brain.

Progress came by inches, his family rejoicing over every success: “Those baby blues are looking very good,” they wrote in an online journal about his open and alert eyes.

Of 97 troops or veterans admitted to these centers between January 2007, when the Emerging Consciousness program became fully operational, and the end of 2009, 67 have awakened, says David Cifu, VA national director, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Two of those were soldiers brought in from overseas battlefields — Remsburg and Sgt. Tony Senecal.

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Therapy helps wounded emerge from comas