SAN ANTONIO, TX - Ten years ago, many of the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing with major lower body injuries would likely have spent the rest of their lives in a wheelchair. A new - and far more positive - set of expectations have been established, however, because of 12 years of experience with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) gained in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While adopting a stray dog or a wild monkey might seem to be a relatively harmless way to boost a military unit’s morale, in countries such as Afghanistan, a nip or exposure to saliva from such an animal can be deadly.

SAN FRANCISCO — Telephone-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and education (EDU) were helpful in management of chronic pain in older military veterans, according to a new study which calls for further study of the interventions for the rural-living elderly with chronic pain.

FORT BRAGG, NC — According to a new study, oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate (OTFC) is a rapid and noninvasive pain-management strategy that provides safe and effective analgesia in the pre-hospital battlefield setting.

FORT SAM HOUSTON, TX --Even though spinal injuries can be extremely disabling for wounded servicemembers, exactly how the injuries occur and what damage they cause has not been fully understood.

HOUSTON — Wounded patients with battlefield chest injuries sustained in Afghanistan and Iraq had higher mortality rates than did patients during the Korean and Vietnam wars, but that likely was because better transport and triage got more of the severely wounded to trauma centers for treatment than in the past conflicts.

BOSTON - PTSD and TBI are frequently co-morbid in veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan - so frequently that physicians are surprised when they find one without the other. And yet the two injuries are still mostly thought of as isolated conditions and are treated separately, even though symptoms of the two injuries are so interwoven they sometimes cannot be differentiated.

BETHESDA, MD -Invasive fungal wound infections are on the increase in military personnel wounded by improvised explosive devices, leading to significant morbidity and even death in some cases where the victims initially survived.

By Brenda L. Mooney
BETHESDA, MD--Invasive fungal wound infections are on the increase in military personnel wounded by improvised explosive devices, leading to significant morbidity and even death in some cases where the victims initially survived.

ROCKVILLE, MD — Morphine has met its match — and then some. After 200 years as the gold standard in battlefield analgesia, morphine is increasingly giving way to ketamine, a phencyclidine (PCP) derivative initially used in veterinary medicine.