Health - Resources and discussion for everything health-related

2321 readers

173 users here now

Health: physical and mental, individual and public.

Discussions, issues, resources, news, everything.

See the pinned post for a long list of other communities dedicated to health or specific diagnoses. The list is continuously updated.

Nothing here shall be taken as medical or any other kind of professional advice.

Commercial advertising is considered spam and not allowed. If you're not sure, contact mods to ask beforehand.

Linked videos without original description context by OP to initiate healthy, constructive discussions will be removed.

Regular rules of lemmy.world apply. Be civil.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

Awa

WhoRoger

RoyalEngineering

528

A Navy SEAL was convinced exposure to blasts damaged his brain, so he donated it to science to prove it (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave to c/health

100 comments fedilink hide all child comments

“We’re really at an infant stage in terms of our clinical ability to assess traumatic brain injury,” a medical expert said.

Before he ended his life, Ryan Larkin made his family promise to donate his brain to science.

The 29-year-old Navy SEAL was convinced years of exposure to blasts had badly damaged his brain, despite doctors telling him otherwise. He had downloaded dozens of research papers on traumatic brain injury out of frustration that no one was taking him seriously, his father said.

“He knew,” Frank Larkin said. “I’ve grown to understand that he was out to prove that he was hurt, and he wasn’t crazy.”

In 2017, a postmortem study found that Ryan Larkin, a combat medic and instructor who taught SEALs how to breach buildings with explosives, had a pattern of brain scarring unique to service members who’ve endured repeated explosions.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] phoneymouse 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah… it definitely sucks, but explains what was going on and why the guy seemed to lose his mind.

I wonder how much longer we’ll see people playing sports like football or UFC as brain trauma becomes better understood.

[–] Tolstoshev 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That’s a good question as sports are ingrained and you can’t take away people’s tribal entertainment without consequences. Panem et circenses and all that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But we can switch to things like tennis or fortnite which don't carry the risk - knowing that just from training your kid could get brain damage wouldn't you try to encourage them into something safer?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

I tried watching some Fortnite streamers, pretty sure it left me with more brain damage than my two deployments.