Summary
Rehabilitation represents the interface of technology and therapeutic interventions to promote increased function and quality of life. The Iraq and Afghan conflicts have highlighted the dearth of information on the long term outcomes of military personnel experiencing traumatic amputation from conflict. This project proposes to establish an Indiana-Ohio Center for Traumatic Amputation Rehabilitation Research (Indiana-Ohio Center) to promote outcomes research on a population with potentially unique rehabilitation needs for long-term health and welfare. Phase I will create the Indiana-Ohio Center and will establish a nation-wide database of Vietnam veterans with traumatic amputation as phase 1 of a multiple year, three phase approach to fully testing the overarching hypothesis. Phases 2 and 3 will focus on collecting data pertaining to key outcomes indicators.
Research Environment
This project seeks to establish the Indiana-Ohio Center which will be administered by the Indiana Center for Rehabilitation Sciences and Engineering Research (ICRSER). ICRSER is housed in the Indiana University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences which is one of seven collaborating schools on the Indiana University Purdue University (IUPUI) campus, the Richard L. Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana. The Indiana-Ohio Center will establish research priorities and will serve as an organizational structure through which subsequent research proposals will be submitted for competitive funding of outcomes studies conducted to give direction to the unique rehabilitation needs of those experiencing traumatic amputation arising from conflict.