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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.

Two-week intensive outpatient programs that implement a comprehensive, holistic approach to treatment, The Road Home Program includes two treatment arms for veterans and their families—one for veterans who experience battlefield PTSD, the other for survivors of military sexual trauma. Their data reveal high success rates during the program and in the long-term, post-program.

Originally, the Home Base program focused primarily on the brain injury, itself, of service members and veterans. With time, experience, and research, the program now approaches treating brain injury from a holistic method as other issues affect brain health—neurological, cognitive, and psychological functions—like sleep deprivation, chronic pain, or co-occurring substance abuse. Treating the whole person with an individually tailored plan has provided far better outcome.

There are several misconceptions around brain injury and it is important to dispel them. One is that someone with a TBI cannot get better. Not true; in fact, many, many people with TBI who are engaged in treatment get better and return to full lives. The second issue is the wishful thinking that there is one pill or technology that can cure a TBI. Not true; rather engaging in a series of evidence-based treatments and sticking to one’s treatment regimen is what helps people heal.

Researchers and doctors are learning more about how blast injuries, especially if repetitive and sustained close together, can affect the brain far more significantly than a singular blow to the head as from football, boxing, or a car crash. When treating veterans and service members, clinicians in the Home Base program start by taking an in-depth TBI history starting from childhood to the present. The more they understand the mechanism, frequency, and interval between any sustained injuries, the more pointed their treatment can be.

TBI is a multi-faceted injury that can present physically through headaches, balance, hearing, or vision problems; psychologically through depression or post-traumatic stress; cognitively through memory and attention issues; or all or a combination of these “buckets.” Home Base is a two-week intensive program for veterans and service members that serves as part of their journey to recovery. After the two weeks, case managers help their clients set up the necessary care and services they need in their community and follow their progress.