(The Center Square) – U.S. Senator Dave McCormick visited Aurelius Brain Health and Human Performance at Harrisburg University Monday.
The lawmaker hoped to learn about advancements in treatment for traumatic brain injury and other neurological and mental health issues common among military veterans.
Specifically, veterans have high rates of comorbidities, including post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and traumatic brain injuries from events like concussions. Together, they lead to a suicide rate as much as four times higher than those suffering from PTSD alone, says Aurelius Director Anson Flake.
Since 2001, the veteran suicide rate has topped 6,000 annually. This means suicide deaths among military members are nearly 19 times higher than combat deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
“Veteran suicide is just this tragedy that has persisted for 20 years, and we’ve not made much progress on it,” said McCormick. “As you know, 16 to 22 veterans a day kill themselves.”
Aurelius is the first program of its kind within the U.S., offering a combination of exercise, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation to create dramatic improvements in cognitive performance and mental health. Flake says he believes a multipronged approach promotes lasting healing to the brain’s physical structure.
The treatment program was developed by an interdisciplinary team of experts who knew that “if you move and if you provide oxygen to the brain and if you provide stimulation, TMS, that collectively, that synergistic, and it will rapidly heal the brain from injuries that usually are medicated,” according to Flake.
He added that this holistic approach has fewer side effects than the medications that are often the first line of treatment for cognitive and psychiatric issues.
Nevertheless, the treatment isn’t necessarily easy to access. While Aurelius provides its services to veterans for free, including providing apartments for them to stay while they are in the program, they are limited by how many people they can treat. Flake estimated that they could see about 75-100 people next year, just a small fraction of the millions of veterans in the U.S. suffering from PTSD.
McCormick wants to see programs like Aurelius piloted across the country. At this time, there are bills in both the House and Senate that would provide veterans with PTSD hyperbaric oxygen therapy specifically. Republicans in the Pennsylvania House have also introduced a resolution that would urge Congress to make the treatment accessible to veterans.
One veteran on site to meet McCormick told a crowd gathered that hyperbaric treatment changed his life after 20 years of military service including several tours of duty which left him “battered and bruised.” He said that he’s been able to recover the cognitive abilities he had as a teenager. He also says he’s seen the benefits from other veterans who move through the program.
“I had a chance to talk to three great Americans who have invested much of their lives in service. I mean, these are the guys that were kicking down doors on the front line that were exposed to lots of brain trauma and lots of risk on behalf of all of us,” said McCormick. “All three of them said it had been a huge improvement in their diagnoses, in their challenges in their lives.”
