Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Veterans' Children Struggle To Handle The Wounds Of War
In households nationwide, hundreds of thousands of wounded parents have come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their children are struggling to navigate the invisible wounds — traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, which together afflict an estimated 30 percent of the 2.7 million former troops. The everyday toll on children is unprecedented, advocates for veterans’ families say, because their parents have complex injuries that would have ended their lives in wars past, before recent medical advances, and suffer from the psychic scars of multiple deployments. (Wax-Thibodeaux, 4/16)
Also in the news is a story about how families cope with the difficulties of a loved-one's Alzheimer's disease.
For 94-year-old Louise Irving, who suffers from dementia, waking up every day to a video with a familiar face and a familiar voice seems to spark a flicker of recognition. "Good morning, merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon?" Irving's daughter, Tamara Rusoff-Hoen, sings in a video playing from a laptop wheeled to her mother's nursing home bedside. (Fitzgerald, 4/17)
