Al Qaeda Terror: Recover brain injury

Is science developed brain armor as body armor? Traumatic brain injury or TBI is becoming an increasingly common affliction of the war on terror as threats to blow up Indian airports or White House.

It’s affecting troops and even the common people. These injuries may be ranging from mild concussions to unconsciousness or coma.

But their ultimate goal is psychological: to create a climate of fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability. Through psychological means, the perpetrators hope to attain what they cannot accomplish militarily. It is about making ordinary people feel vulnerable, anxious, confused, uncertain, and helpless. Terrorism intentionally hits emotional “hot buttons.”

Improved body armor is doing a wonderful job of saving lives and reducing the rate of internal injuries on the battlefield. But even with Kevlar helmets, there’s a critical organ this protective gear simply doesn’t adequately protect: the gelatin-like brain material that can shift violently inside the skull when confronted by explosions, sudden jolts or shock waves from blasts.

Brain injury
A common misconception is that having a brain injury is the same as being brain damaged. That is not necessarily the case. One of the confusing and often deceptive things about brain injuries is that they are not visible to the eye. The brain injury results in temporary disability and impairment. They are the equivalent of a concussion. People often fully recover from these kinds of injuries.

Zidane head-butted in World Cup to an Italian player and if that Italian player got knocked out for a few seconds may be told he has a concussion. That is a brain injury.

Indian soldier on LoC who is close to an explode may get knocked off his feet and briefly lose consciousness. He may notice later that he feels a little slow, that the events of the day seem a little unclear to him and that he seems to be having trouble remembering things or concentrating on routine tasks. He may well have a concussion, also a brain injury.

Science could not develop up till now brain armor as body armor.
Even with Kevlar helmets, there’s a critical organ this protective gear simply doesn’t adequately protect: the gelatin-like brain material that can shift violently inside the skull when confronted by the threat of Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization and when happened explosions, sudden jolts or shock waves from blasts.

Unfortunately, our brains do not triage stress from traumatic (dhocking) situations. A driver that suddenly cuts us off on the highway and the fear encountered during a terrorist attack trigger the same fear response in our brain circuitry.

TBI symptoms run the gamut, from slower reaction times to severe emotional and cognitive problems. Affected troops often report headaches, sensitivity to light or noise, dizziness or nausea. But many also experience the less-obvious symptoms of depression, irritability, insomnia or loss of memory or problem-solving abilities, the doctors said. In more severe cases, victims can lose their eyesight and their ability to walk and talk.

This circuitry can be activated when a loved one undergoes a traumatic event and in emergency room personnel and first responders “There is nothing unique about a terrorist attack as a traumatic stressor. A traumatic stressor is defined as anything that’s a threat to your life or the life of someone close to you. It’s really only variations of magnitude,” said Dr. Douglas Brenner, the director of the Emory Center for Positron Emission Tomography at Emory University’s School of Medicine, and Director of Mental Health Research at the VA Medical Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1995, Brenner’s team was the first to use brain imaging to study post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to show how stress can damage brain circuitry. The fear response comes from the amygdala. The frontal cortex helps the extinction of fear, which eliminates the fear response. Everybody has a fear response. It’s a normal adaptive response to a threatening situation, explained Bremner. The issue is whether the fear response can be shut off afterwards, when the threat is over. People who don’t shut off their fear response develop chronic PTSD, which involves the frontal lobe, he said. The hippocampus is sensitive to the effects of stress, which can lead to problems with memory if that stress is chronic.

Most People Recover Psychologically, But a Minority Do Not
PTSD is marked by intrusive and distressing recollections of the event; avoidance of any reminders (which may make it difficult to return to work in the affected neighborhood), numbing of normal emotional responses, disturbed sleep, and difficulty concentrating.

One problem is that people without known risk factors may be overlooked, even though they need care. After 9/11, the research in US found that a sizable number of residents in and outside of New York City had developed PTSD symptoms even though they were not directly affected by the attacks

Field hospitals are doing “a remarkable job” of offering sophisticated medical care close to the point of injury, French said, including conducting initial screenings for brain injury when possible.

Precaution Measures
(1) The very words 'brain injury' often instill fear in people and make them uncomfortable. To increase public awareness and understanding, October is designated Brain Injury Awareness Day or Week or Month.
(2) Create interdisciplinary Task Force in 2003. Its members were experts in brain and behavior, with a special focus on responses to trauma and risk communication. The Task Force evaluated the scientific literature to determine what we know about the psychological effects of terrorism, what we urgently need to know, and what recommendations we should implement now.

Pre-Event Recommendations
*Prepare materials for media and public education
*Identify and implement methods for educating the public
*Decrease information and dissemination about how to produce weapons
*Develop an effective risk communication strategy
*Inform the public about prevention and safety efforts
*Provide information that educates populations about expected response and coping strategies that would increase community resilience
Event
*Distribute information appropriate to the event
*Notify survivors of services in the absence of functioning communication systems
*Communicate risk and proposed response effectively
Post-Event
*Communicate that preparedness helps decrease the impact of the attack
*Publicize availability of targeted services to appropriate segments of the population
*Produce public information and warnings
*Communicate deterrent information
*Adjust risk communication, emphasizing the positive
Source: Institute of Medicine (IOM), 2003.

'We will blow up White House'
A new recording Friday attributed to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq mocked U.S. President George W. Bush as a coward whose conduct of the war had been rejected by U.S. voters, challenging him to keep American troops in the country to face more bloodshed.

Al-Muhajir's recording appeared to be an attempt at exact maximum propaganda benefit from the results of Tuesday's midterm elections, in which Bush's Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress, in part because of the war.

The tape and its often flamboyant claims came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of five more service members in the 44-month-old conflict that has grown increasingly unpopular at home.

Plans to blow up the Indian airports
On Nov 9, Security has been tightened at airports across the country, after a letter, saying Al-Qaeda had infiltrated Chennai airport and plans to blow up the airport using some "sophisticated technology," was discovered at Trichi airport, civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad said on Thursday.

Grenade-thrower wants mercy as mercy appeal of Afzal
The man who lobbed a grenade at the Pulwama Mosque yesterday killing six including four kids and injuring sixty was captured and handed over to the Army. He says he was paid Rs 1000 by the Hizbul Mujahideen for lobbing the grenade at Sufi leader Abdul Rashid Dawood. Though locals say that the grenade-thrower was caught by villagers and handed over to the police, the administration has not confirmed the claim.
The grenade-thrower begged mercy to assure for not committing the terror attack again. I think that Congress CM of J&K Gulam of Afzal who initiated the mercy appeal for Afzal, should also look this appeal also. Former CMs Mufti and Farooq Abdulla would support him for this secular humanitarian religious effort.

Dig well before fire happened
These type of news are necessary to publish but also sufficient to crate a tension among the common people as well as the responsible staff. All become panic. Threatening and after that taking precaution measures become the routine all over the world. Why should not the same safety measures be taken always? If this would be done then there should not be spread terror among the common people and thus terrorists prior to execution of the terror would not be damage brains.

Al Qaeda create terror environment before executing terror blast. Publicity of this in media and to the possible targeted persons also injured the brain. Targeted countries such as US, UK and India themselves helps Al Qaeda and others creating terror among the people.

Terrorism is not for a limited period
We should accept the reality. We have to live with facing terrorism. Enemy neither send love letter nor inform before attacking to us or to the security forces that stand firmly on the border. We are not living in ‘Mahabharat’ period. So every person of the country should be alert as the soldier. We should be prepared ourselves to face successfully the terror event. We should learn a lesson from the following incident of today.
By Premendra Agrawal