NICoE exterior rendering.

Please join us on Thursday, June 17, from 1300 to 1430 hrs EST, for a chance to hear about the new National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE). We hope you’ll join us in our monthly webinar where we’ll discuss how this center will operate and how you can get involved in the future.

The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund has built and equipped NICoE, which is dedicated to the advancement of diagnosis, clinical care and research in warriors with complex combat related traumatic brain injury and psychological health issues. NICoE has been established to be the "hub" for exchange of expert ideas and initiation of innovative studies to provide hope for the restoration of quality of life for individuals with traumatic brain injury and psychological health issues and their families.

Read more...

A service member reads a letter. DoD photo by PHCS Mitchell.

“Can caring letters prevent warrior suicide?” The Caring Letters Project, launched by DCoE’s National Center for Telehealth & Technology (T2), aims to answer this question. The project is part of the Department of Defense’s efforts to identify and disseminate the most effective suicide prevention strategies.

The Caring Letters Project is a suicide prevention intervention that involves sending brief caring letters and reminders of available treatment to individuals following psychiatric hospitalization. The project is currently underway at Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC) located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Wash.

Although much research has investigated the factors associated with suicidal behavior in both civilian and military populations, there haven’t been many controlled trial studies of suicide prevention interventions. Sending caring letters to patients after discharge from inpatient psychiatry treatment is one of the few techniques that have been shown to decrease suicide according to a randomized controlled trial (Motto & Bostrom, 2001, Comtois & Linehan, 2006).

Here’s how it works:

• Research assistants meet with warriors on the MAMC inpatient psychiatry unit and speak with them about their hobbies, family and plans after discharge

Read more...

The Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE), cosponsored a workshop titled, “Advancing Integrated Research in Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury: Common Data Elements” with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, on 23 and 24 March, in Silver Spring, M d.

The purpose was to assemble subject matter experts (SMEs) to develop recommendations for standardized definitions, variable sets, screening and assessment tools and procedures to advance the state of the science in psychological health (PH), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the overlap of those entities. It served as the culmination of more than three months of work by eight specific working groups that focused on demographics, biomarkers, TBI neuroimaging, outcome measures, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and operational stress. In all, 137 SMEs, representing 50 agencies (including 21 universities, 19 Department of Defense entities, nine National Institutes of Health institutes, and three countries) attended one or both days of the workshop.

Members of these organizations and SMEs came together in an unprecedented face-to-face meeting to discuss methods of improving data elements in PH and TBI research so that more robust comparisons can be made across studies. This workshop was an opportunity to bring the working minds together to discuss and improve these practices.

Experts agree that there is a lack of uniformity with current research and a need for harmonization of research components such as biomarkers, imagery, and classification systems. This will allow for a better understanding of the research and lessons learned and allow for a wider diagnosis of best practices to better develop the field of PH and TBI.

The working groups’ recommendations for how to measure and present information in their fields may be helpful to all upcoming PH and TBI clinical research studies in standardizing their fields.

The workshop was organized by the DCoE Research, Quality Assurance, Program Evaluation, and Surveillance Directorate.