TCFD JOINS AMERICA SALUTES YOU TO DISCUSS VETERAN BRAIN HEALTH
SHARE
“Brain health is brain health,” TCFD CEO Patrick H. Dollard told an esteemed panel of experts during a America Salutes You Roundtable entitled “Guiding Families from Crisis to Action.”
“When you get into biomedical markers of brain health, if you live long enough, you get into these kind of issues…” he said, “We happen to be dealing with a complex population here at TCFD, so we see these brain health issues all the time. I think a lot of our work is beginning to translate to typical folks.”
Mr. Dollard joined eight other leaders in veteran’s affairs and brain and mental health for the Seventh Annual Roundtable, designed to discuss policy and cutting-edge developments in the fields of suicide, PTS/PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and other mental and emotional challenges in servicemen and women. This year’s event, sponsored by America Salutes You and Entertainment Industries Council Inc., focused not only active and retired military personnel, but also their family members, friends, and the larger population.
Dollard outlined The Center’s extensive research in the area of the gut-brain microbiome, nutrition, wearable technology and the vagus nerve. He also discussed exciting partnerships with the Child Mind Institute and Northwell Health, as well as TCFD’s new Children’s Specialty Hospital. “Our new Specialty Hospital, which will be the first of its kind in New York State, will be geared to trying to take children in crisis with developmental issues, on the [autism] spectrum and also with psychiatric issues, and try to get them figured out and keep them at home with their families, and in school. We will also train the families. It’s a very new idea. It couldn’t happen at a better time,” he said. In terms of the new vagus nerve research he added, “We will be working with several institutes… on the whole fight-flight/heart-mind stuff – which we think if we can tame that, we can deal with a lot of triggering things which are happening with people. That’s very translatable to veterans and all of us.”
The Center, which has a rich history of working with 82nd Airborne Division, is increasingly being recognized for the broader applications of its successful research and programming. This fall, NORC, an independent non-partisan research institution, reviewed the TCFD HealthE6®Model of care, and concluded that several of its core pillars can be utilized in the care of older adults in other health care settings like nursing homes and assisted living centers.