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wounded warriors New Programs, new technologies, and new attitudes support military personnel with disabilities story By J.R. Wilson
T
he term “perfect storm” typically refers to a major catastrophe resulting from an unusual combination of factors. But for wounded warriors returning from Southwest Asia since 9/11, it has meant a culmination of new technologies, new attitudes, new diagnoses, new treatments, new prosthetics, and the rapid growth and expansion of adaptive reconditioning. In the wake of every war prior to Operation Desert Storm in 1991, warfighters with disabilities were most likely to be seen in public on crutches, in wheelchairs, or using prosthetics whose technologies hadn’t advanced in 50 years. Implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 and the rise of sports as part of warfighter rehabilitation began to change that in the quarter-century since. The past decade especially has seen the military services radically change their thinking concerning wounded warriors, encouraging those who have been disabled in military service to remain in the armed forces if at all possible, should they so choose. Much of this is due to a massive research and development effort by the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in medicine and technologies serving people with disabilities, from computer-enhanced
prosthetics to brain and spinal cord injury research. But, more importantly, accompanying these medical advances has been a sea change in the way the military views its “wounded warriors” and what they can bring to the fight. Kirk Bauer, executive director of Disabled Sports USA (DSUSA), called the change in attitude toward people with disabilities, by both the public and the military, “nothing short of revolutionary. The military has done a 180-degree turn, now working hard to keep highly trained personnel in the service, sometimes even returning to combat.” The DOD estimates that nearly 1,600 service members have lost limbs since the start of the wars in 2001, where improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have often been the enemy’s weapon of choice. This peaked, according to a Congressional Research Service report, in 2011, when 240 deployed servicemen and women had at least one arm or leg amputated. More than 80 percent of amputations have involved injuries to a lower limb. In the early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, wounded warriors who had lost a limb were regularly fitted with prosthetics, rehabilitated, and medically retired. Prosthetics was largely the responsibility of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), which, as the
health care branch of the VA, saw its mission as helping veterans adjust and thrive as civilian amputees. The VA and its partners still play a leading role today in prosthetics development, but now the DOD also plays a major part. In 2004, the Pentagon contracted with a prosthetics company to design a “military-grade” prosthetic knee that could enable skilled and capable service members to return to duty whenever possible, and these efforts, and the change in mind-set they reflected, have paid off. A 1995 study found that only 11 of 469 U.S. amputee soldiers (2.3 percent) returned to duty in the 1980s with amputation levels that included partial foot, partial hand, and transtibial (below knee). Today, that has increased to 16.5 percent. According to statistics made available by the Pentagon in the spring of 2012, more than 300 deployed service members who suffered the loss of a limb returned to active duty – and of those, more than 50 returned to Iraq or Afghanistan. Such numbers would not have seemed possible just a few years ago. The change of attitude regarding disabilities and those seeking help is perhaps most definitive among 21st century wounded warriors, who not only seek but expect cutting-edge technology and medical care, including advanced,
