A new Virginia Beach clinic designed to help Naval Special Warfare veterans with traumatic brain injuries will start its first cohort this month.
The Synapse Integrated Therapy Center will combine three types of therapy into one facility and one appointment: physical, speech-language and mental health. Clinical directors Annie Tamburello Croley and Jessica Branham said those therapies are the most referred after veterans with traumatic brain injuries (or TBIs) are assessed. Located at the Warrior for Life Fund’s Human Performance Center, all three therapies will be available in the same building.
“Our focus is treatment more than assessment, and we are hoping to just really capture service members with a focus on Special Warfare community coming out of some of these (assessment) programs, and be able to provide them long-term care,” said Tamburello.
Tamburello, a speech pathologist, and Branham, a licensed clinical social worker, each have more than a decade of experience working with special operations veterans. They partnered this year to create Synapse. They said in a lot of cases, a veteran visits an assessment center to receive a diagnosis for a TBI or other issues, and once they come home, managing several appointments with various providers can become challenging.
“When you go up to one of these (assessment) programs, you come back with a lot of diagnoses,” said Ryan Croley, a retired Navy SEAL and executive director of Warrior for Life Fund. “You got a lot of stuff going on, and you have to pick and choose: who you’re going to see, what you’re going to do, what’s the highest priority. Just putting numbers to it, if I went to three appointments a week, it would take me about 15 hours by the time I leave work, go there, do the appointment, schedule my next appointment, come back to work and settle back in. In this scenario (Synapse), you’re going to get it done in about three to four hours.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 15-20% of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced a TBI. The severity of these injuries can range from mild to severe, with long-term effects. Some effects include sleep issues, memory problems, depression and difficulty concentrating. The Synapse team will mainly focus on service members in Naval Special Warfare, such as Navy SEALs and Special Warfare Combat Crewmen, because they have a higher chance of injuries from working with heavy weapons or explosives in combat or training.
The clinic’s first cohort, which begins Sept. 22, will have six former service members attending every Monday for 12 weeks, with organizers hoping to expand in the future. Three will have their therapy in the morning and three will begin in the afternoon. While at Synapse, each veteran will spend about 45 minutes in each type of therapy, with 15 minutes between each rotation for a break. Branham said having all aspects of care under one roof means providers can efficiently communicate between each other about patients, and all clinicians will have cultural knowledge of veteran needs. Branham said Synapse providers will take insurance, and any other co-pays will be covered by the fund, so veterans in the program will have no out-of-pocket costs for attending.
The center has been specially designed with veterans in mind, as well. All bathrooms are ADA accessible and equipped with showers. Rooms for therapy are organized so that former service members do not have their backs to the door, Branham said, since that can cause unwanted stress for clients with PTSD. The clinic will also have a Shiftwave chair, which vibrates to guide someone from a fight-or-flight response back to a recovery response.
TBIs from military service are formed differently than ones from car crashes or sports like football. According to the Disabled American Veterans organization, combat-related incidents, such as explosions or direct impacts from projectiles, are major causes of TBIs in veterans. Additionally, accidents during training exercises or active duty contribute to the risk.
“It has its own signature pattern of scarring that’s happening,” Tamburello said. “So imagine your brain as a bowl of Jell-O, and that constant shaking causes some little cracks, and then those cracks scar.”
Next door to the Human Performance Center, Warrior for Life Fund hosts hockey programs for active duty members, veterans and their families as they navigate the challenges of combat deployments and life after service. Croley, who is married to Tamburello, said he hopes both programs can work in tandem to provide a holistic approach to bettering health outcomes for veterans in Virginia Beach.
“The guys already come (to Warrior for Life Fund), and Virginia Beach is a very heavy hub for the special operations forces community anyways, so we just are adding on to what they already had and bringing our pre-existing services into it,” Tamburello said. “We’re just all integrating together.”
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