CFD Research Corporation, led by Dr. Andrzej Przekwas, the Senior Vice President for Research in Computational Medicine and Biology, is working with the Department of Defense to learn more about how soldiers are injured and how they can be better protected.
Rocket propelled grenades, land mines, and improvised explosive devices, all of these are weapons that soldiers have been attacked with throughout the past decade while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as more and more soldiers are returning home, it is becoming very clear that while many of their injuries are visible, others are not. Current data suggests that approximately half of all wounded soldiers suffer from traumatic brain injuries.
“There are some casualties who have no visible penetrating injuries yet they lose consciousness for sometimes half an hour or longer,” explained Dr. Przekwas.
This loss of consciousness and resulting brain damage is caused by the blast waves and that’s what Dr. Przekwas and his team is trying to understand and ultimately prevent.
“The blast wave hits the human head, it propagates faster inside the brain than inside the air, it is a big reflection from the side and this may be [a] five [or] ten millisecond event [that] may cause lifelong injury,” explained Przekwas while showing a model of the impact wave on his computer screen.
Read the full story here and watch the interview below:
