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Since it's inception, yoga has been an integral part of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. During the intensive two-week program, veterans take one hour of yoga three times a week where they learn to release physical and emotional pain. Mr. Yura says that although some students are more engaged than others, it is rewarding for him to see the extent of people's responses to the practice, including embracing what they have learned to use post-program like specific movements for lower back release, breathing techniques, and strategies for calming the nervous system during a reactive situation.

Somatics is a movement therapy that refers to the internal sensations of the body, how you're moving your body, what you feel inside your body. When teaching yoga to veterans through the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, Marty Yura focuses on interoceptive awareness — the ability to identify, access, understand, and respond appropriately to the patterns of internal signals, which can provide a distinct advantage to engage in life challenges and on-going adjustments. He explains: "When you are focusing on somatics, you are not working against gravity which offers you more space, more room, and more awareness to home in on what you are feeling."

How can we get people to talk more openly about PTSD and related symptoms of TBI? Why is there still a stigma? What can we do? Dr. Klassen answers your questions about mental health treatment.

For many veterans and service members returning from deployment, not having their "team," their battle buddies around is very difficult. Everything seems to be about the individual. Capitalizing on this team unity mentality, providers at the Road Home Program understand that more healing will happen when people are working on individualized therapies as well as group therapies and activities. Once again, they have each other's backs.

Treating service members and veterans with TBI and PTSD often includes complex and unique interventions and treatments. Based on their evidence-based guidelines and experiences working with thousands of people in their two-week immersive program, Home Base also focuses intentionally and systematically on assessing what the population needs once they leave the program and return to their communities. The more Home Base can help connect their participants with clusters of experts in their areas, the more long-term healing will occur.

Does success translate into riding a horse again, returning to your pre-military job as an accountant, or coaching your kid’s Little League team? Staff at the Home Base Program understand that what success looks like for one military member with TBI and/or PTSD may look 180-degrees different from that of another. Using evidence-based guidelines to drive their therapeutic regimens as well as applying lessons learned from helping thousands of people in the program, Home Base providers are not only fine-tuning what they do each day but also learning and creating the next generation of effective therapies.

Home Base’s two weeks of assessments and individualized therapies focused on treating veterans and services members with TBI and PTSD seems to be the “sweet spot” of time for this kind of immersive program. Staff in the program have seen lives changed, lives saved. They understand that the veteran experience is a unique one, hard for civilians to fully comprehend. Providing these men and women with the tailored interventions and therapies they need to enhance function in their day-to-day life is often as important as the bonding aspect of being with others who have had and continue to have similar experiences, challenges, and forward steps.

The Home Base program, which includes comprehensive assessments and a two-week immersion into therapies and treatments for TBI, PTSD, and other conditions, is created anew for each veteran or service member who joins. Whether engaging in physical or cognitive therapeutic interventions, learning how better to communicate with family and friends, or delving into art therapies, each individual becomes part of a strong and supportive community of people who understand their experiences, though everyone’s experiences and issues are unique and treated as such.

The jury is still out on the exact ways that repeated blast injuries affect the brain. Some believe that the blast waves travel through the organs, producing a change in the gray-white matter of the brain. Others believe that blast-related injuries produce a unique pathology while others still think that the pathological signals from these injuries result in behavioral disturbance. But all researchers seem to agree that repeated blast-related injuries affect a person’s brain in the short-term as well as in the long-term with the risk of neurodegenerative disease.

A family member or support person at home plays a key role as part of the treatment plan for a service member or veteran. An adjunct in their loved one’s care, the family member collaborates with the team of providers to help their loved one follow through with appointments, medications, and health regimens. They often serve as the more impartial eyes and ears to their loved one’s challenges and improvements.