The Warrior
For those who directly sustained the impact.
If you are the one who lived through the breach, the interview is an exercise in externalizing the internal. We use the data to validate the physical reality that standard screenings might have missed.
- The Blast: We go back to the darkness of when you sustained your injuries and bring them into the light. We look at your data like "Actual vs. Recorded" numbers. We discuss the sensory experience of the primary overpressure—not just the "explosion," but the immediate fight, evacuation, and life shifts that followed.
- The Battle: This is about the 'glitch' or neuro-cognitive fragmentation that can follow. We discuss the struggle to stay in the fight, the challenges of "driving on" through invisible symptoms, and the eventual collision with a medical system that often lacked the specialized tools to characterize your injury.
- The Beyond: We'll explore your "new normal" as we identify the shifts you experienced in both professional effectiveness and in maintaining relationships. This is about how you’ve had to redefine your identity when the "signature" of the injury changed the way your brain fires.
The Provider/Organization
For the clinician, non-profit leader, or administrator rendering care.
Your interview is vital as we explore the diagnostic and treatment gaps that both did and currently exist for someone recovering from a blast injury. We discuss the burden of a system that wasn't designed for the sheer volume or the specific pathology for those returning from two decades of warfighting.
- The Blast: We discuss the Science of the Record. We talk about your initial impressions of when the service member presented for the first time. How prepared you were for the casualties both in active combat zones and if required once transported from theater. What frustrations of seeing patients whose clinical presentation didn't align with diagnostic tools like CT scans or MACE exams, and why many of the initial triage practices for concussion injuries needed to be improved as the war raged on.
- The Battle: This is a deep dive into Specialized Intervention. We discuss the struggle to provide high-level care in a burdened systems and the innovative protocols you & your organization use to address the "Comorbid Triad" of TBI, PTSD, and chronic pain.
- The Beyond: This is the Advocacy Roadmap. We talk about what is missing in current policy and how data-driven research can support a burdened system to evolve from "monitoring" to "mending." Future expertise can't rely on such outdated clinical practices; we require your valuable insight of those you've treated to offer a path to the hundreds of thousands who've sustained blast injuries and improve the care systems built to support them.
The Family/Community Leader
For the family members or care giver who bear the "Front-Line" load.
If you are the support system, the interview is about the invisible aftermath. You are often one of the few people who truly knows what was lost and what it takes to sustain the service member who came home.
- The Blast: We talk about the "Before and After." You explain the moment you realized the person who returned wasn't the same as the one who left. This is about the first signs of the "signature" becoming visible at the kitchen table rather than the clinic.
- The Battle: This is about Caregiver Burden and Navigation. We discuss the "I didn't know what I didn't know" phase—the exhaustion of navigating a system that didn't provide the education for the range of emotional volatility or the memory lapses you were suddenly managing 24/7.
- The Beyond: This is about Resilience and Advocacy. We discuss the spiritual and emotional toll on the community and what support you wish had existed. You advocate for the specific resources that would have helped then and now bridge the gap between "surviving" and "thriving" for the family unit.