The Department of Defense’s Warfighter Brain Health Initiative is conducting research on the impact of blast overpressure exposures from weapons and munitions on service members’ brain health as part of efforts to optimize warfighters’ cognitive and physical capabilities.
As part of the initiative, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs has created a list of “Tier 1” weapon systems that generate the most blast pressure exposure effects for service members, the Defense Health Agency said Tuesday.
Based on input from service members, OSD(HA) initial Tier 1 systems identified five distinct categories of high-overpressure weapon systems: shoulder-mounted weapons, .50 caliber weapons, Howitzers, mortars and demolition.
“We’re offering a mitigation strategy to try to keep service members safe and then the recognition that if they have these symptoms, go get checked out, go and get a medical person to do some eyes on, to do a quick assessment, and check those things that we talked about,” said Kathy Lee, lead for the WBHI and director of Casualty Management for the OSD(HA).
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