Dr. Chrisanne Gordon has garnered national acclaim for her work involving the understanding of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and how it affects veterans returning from combat. She also happens to be located right here in Union County.
Gordon has been a physician at Memorial Hospital since the mid-1980s and for the last 11 years, she has worked to expand the research, treatment, understanding and awareness of TBI.
She came to Memorial Hospital from the Ohio State University hospital to set up the occupational health center and eventually became the Director of Rehabilitation Services after deciding Marysville was where she wanted to stay.
Her expertise in rehabilitation would go on to define her career as a physician working with veterans.
The fight begins
“The war in Afghanistan started in 2001. The first time that a veteran was checked by the VA (Veterans’ Affairs) after getting out, for a Traumatic Brain Injury, was 2008,” Gordon said. It was that same year that she was asked to do work with the VA clinic in Columbus. “For a year, I was doing the Traumatic Brain Injury screenings a few days a month.” She said in her work she found that 85% of the veterans coming in had “definite TBI” and many of them had 8-10 blast injuries.
After what Gordon refers to as her “tour of duty,” she decided she wanted to do more to help those affected by this condition. She started the Resurrecting Lives Foundation which focuses on “promoting collaborative efforts between military and VA resources, and the civilian community,” according to the foundation’s website. The organization acts as a “voice” for those suffering from TBI.
After gaining some traction with spreading awareness, Gordon paired with famed World War II Gen. George S. Patton’s grandson, Benjamin, a filmmaker, for a documentary film called Operation Resurrection. The 2013 documentary explores the stories of combat veterans suffering from TBI after war.
Traumatic Brain Injury
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines TBI as “a disruption in the normal function of the brain that can be caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, or penetrating head injury.”
She said this is something that affects athletes and veterans alike but the effect on veterans is substantial.
“With a football injury to the head, whatever is attacking the brain is coming at about 50 miles an hour,” Gordon said, adding that studies with women’s soccer players done at the University of Virginia showed “headers” (controlling the soccer ball with the head) gives a blow of about 70 miles per hour. “(In combat or military training) a blast injury force comes at the brain at 1100 miles an hour.”
TBI is often referred to as an “invisible” injury or condition because the symptoms aren’t as obvious to patients as other inflictions. If a patient does have symptoms, they often aren’t noticed on a typical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.
In 2012, to get a better, more concrete understanding of TBI, Gordon helped get 22 veterans from Ohio and Michigan to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in the Bronx, NY for a study. The research, led by Dr. Michael Lipton, worked to produce needed evidence of TBI in veterans. The team at the university was able to look at certain areas of the brain using their advanced MRI-based imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
“It shows exactly where these fibers are ripped within the brain,” Gordon said. “Dr. Lipton looked at the veterans and found that 20 of them had almost identical lesions in the same area of the brain.” She added that the findings of the study allowed the researchers to present concrete evidence to the Department of Defense and VA.
Gordon said findings from that study helped doctors pinpoint three major types of symptoms: vision, balance and memory/cognition.
Since then, doctors have been able to develop rehabilitation techniques using information on how TBIs affect those areas of brain.
TBI and PTSD
Cognitive damage can also account for the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans and those affected by TBIs.
“The big mantra I’ve had for a while is these guys are ‘out of their brains, not out of their mind,’” Gordon said. “The VA was treating this as a mental illness. They’re still treating this as a mental illness.” She said that’s not the case and that it could account for the lack of success in some areas of treatment.
“We have this young patient population that has trauma to the brain from being in war and we prescribe them psychotropic drugs,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
She said thanks to several studies and more awareness of TBI and PTSD, action is being taken at the federal level.
Looking forward
In 2018, Congress passed the VA Mission Act, which set out to improve care and access to benefits for veterans.
Improvements include access to walk-in community clinics, allowing veterans to stay local, and payment for medications among other benefits.
“Things are getting better,” Gordon said. “But what they can do at the VA is not the same as what we do here on the civilian level.”
She said much of her work is expanding care and getting veterans access to treatment techniques that are available to certain hospitals in larger cities and in hospitals attached to research universities.
“I would suggest that if you want to go to the VA, the people at the Union County Department of Veterans’ Services can be of help to you getting your appointment set up and getting (to Columbus) with transportation,” Gordon said. “Veterans could also consult their family physician.”
She said after the initial intake evaluation is conducted either by the family doctor or by the VA doctor, the physician could determine the next course of action. That can involve testing reaction times and thought processes or anatomy tests such as functional MRIs.
“We figured for every one person that has this issue, there are five family members or people you’re working with that are affected by what is going on with you. It’s a huge ripple effect. These are young, otherwise healthy people who have their whole lives ahead of them,” Gordon said. “We can’t let them go.”