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A total of 120 Armenian soldiers wounded in the Artsakh war are currently undergoing treatment at the Homeland Defender’s Rehabilitation Center in Yerevan. The center also enables its specialists to start rehabilitation care of soldiers at resuscitation departments of various medical centers.

Speaking to Panorama.am, Lusine Poghosyan, the chief rehabilitation physician of the Homeland Defender’s Rehabilitation Center, highlighted the efforts not to miss the “golden period” of physical therapy, adding the center’s rehabilitation doctors, along with all the other doctors with a narrow focus, start treatment of soldiers while they are still in resuscitation departments so that they can follow the process of treatment and transfer patients to their center after their condition stabilizes.

She emphasized the soldiers have suffered manly multiple shrapnel and traumatic injuries which have also affected the internal organs.

"It means we must take into account that there are not only problems with the musculoskeletal system, but also numerous problems with the internal organs. The combination must be assessed very accurately to be able to provide rehabilitation treatment on time," the doctor stressed.

According to Poghosyan, mostly critically injured soldiers are admitted to the Homeland Defender’s Rehabilitation Center.

"In case of injuries to the central nervous system, including spinal and cerebral injuries, very difficult and long treatment is required to help a patient get back on his feet,” she said, adding after undergoing orthopedic microsurgery, they provide neurological rehabilitation to many soldiers to help them fully recover from the injuries.

Poghosyan said that there are soldiers who have already completed their treatment and have been discharged. "The doctors of our resuscitation department note with satisfaction that a boy was in the resuscitation department with serious injuries, but now he has returned home on foot. Such health problems often take months or even years to be resolved. And we are providing the right treatment at the right time and are really getting the soldiers back on his feet,” she said.

According to the doctor, there are cases when it is still too early to say whether the patients will remain confined to a wheelchair or not, because in case of a severe spinal cord injury it takes at least 6 months to understand how much the body is able to recover.

Poghosyan said that the doctors of the resuscitation department of the center also saved the lives of many soldiers on the battlefield by providing first aid to them, adding “the treatment is carried out from the beginning to the end.”

The doctor appealed to the parents of the wounded soldiers, who, according to her, are in a grave psychological state.

"We understand that the parents are in panic, it is very hard for both the parents and the soldiers. But it may be a particularly difficult time especially for parents. I ask and urge you to be patient, not to get into a panic, because any soldier who is here is safe. We solve all the issues, we also support the family members. Patience and time are needed, we will try to set all our boys back on their feet again," Lusine Poghosyan said.