Bleak studies from the Pentagon medical community

Now do you believe me? All the "prevention" programs have made it worse at the same time the repeated deployments were putting too much stress on the troops.

Pentagon Medics Weigh in on the “Signature Scars of a Long War”
TIME Battleland
By Mark Thompson
April 25, 2013

Sometimes, the doctors will tell you what the politicians won’t.

That’s the bottom line in a new Pentagon assessment of the human costs of the nation’s post-9/11 wars, which shows mental casualties growing far more rapidly than any kind of physical wound – along with a warning that the nation has only begun paying the costs of such injuries.

The April edition of the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report is the latest in a long series of bleak studies from the Pentagon medical community charting the hidden costs of the nation’s recent wars. It notes that the hospitalization rate for mental disorders among active-duty military personnel, for example, grew by 8% from 2002 to 2006, but more than doubled from 2006 to 2012. These reports tend to be unheralded, and aren’t rolled out with press briefings, or even press releases. Instead, they’re written for military medical professionals and quietly issued to guide their efforts in patient care and research.

“However, for mental disorders, annual hospitalization rates were fairly stable from 2002 through 2006 and then sharply increased from 2006 through 2012.” read more here

Talk therapy is the most successful treatment for PTSD

Considering Point Man International Ministries has been doing that since 1984 with great results, maybe it is time to stop spending billions a year and start doing what costs very little to do.

Talk therapy is the most successful treatment for PTSD
Walter Reed Psychiatry Department Chief Cites Talk Therapy as Most Successful Treatment for PTSD in Testimony to House Armed Services Subcommittee
Released: 4/24/2013 9:00 AM EDT
Source Newsroom: American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA)

Newswise — NEW YORK, NY (April 24, 2013) – Cmdr. Russell B. Carr, M.D., acting chief of the psychiatry department at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, stated that almost everyone seen at Walter Reed and in clinics throughout the Department of Defense is suicidal. He also estimates that the best PTSD treatments in use today do not work for 30 to 40 percent of patients. Cmdr. Carr runs the adult outpatient mental health clinic at Walter Reed and his statements were part of his testimony given during the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Military Personnel hearing on mental health research on April 10.

Cmdr. Carr stated that although some treatments, such as medication, manage symptoms, it is talk therapy that is most successful in improving PTSD. Cmdr. Carr recommended that talk therapies specifically tailored to combat-related PTSD be developed.

It is the therapeutic relationship between clinician and patient that is the hallmark of talk therapy. This relationship allows the person coming for treatment to feel safe and understood – even while relating experiences that may be too horrific to verbalize anywhere else. Talking helps those in treatment make sense of their experiences and eventually live with them.
read more here

The different levels of PTSD leave people confused

NATIONAL CENTER FOR PTSD has a list of the 5 different levels of PTSD. Normal stress response, acute stress disorder, uncomplicated PTSD, comorbid PTSD and complex PTSD.

It begins with this one

Normal Stress Response
The normal stress response occurs when healthy adults who have been exposed to a single discrete traumatic event in adulthood experience intense bad memories, emotional numbing, feelings of unreality, being cut off from relationships or bodily tension and distress. Such individuals usually achieve complete recovery within a few weeks.

Often a group debriefing experience is helpful. Debriefings begin by describing the traumatic event. They then progress to exploration of survivors’ emotional responses to the event.

Next, there is an open discussion of symptoms that have been precipitated by the trauma.

Finally, there is education in which survivors’ responses are explained and positive ways of coping are identified.

This is the one where intervention does in fact help prevent PTSD. "Help" is the key word because if it is done right, even if PTSD does develop, they have the tools to fight against it and the results are not as bad as the last one on the list.

Complex PTSD
Complex PTSD (sometimes called “Disorder of Extreme Stress”) is found among individuals who have been exposed to prolonged traumatic circumstances, especially during childhood, such as childhood sexual abuse. These individuals often are diagnosed with borderline or antisocial personality disorder or dissociative disorders.

They exhibit behavioral difficulties (such as impulsivity, aggression, sexual acting out, eating disorders, alcohol or drug abuse, and self-destructive actions), extreme emotional difficulties (such as intense rage, depression, or panic) and mental difficulties (such as fragmented thoughts, dissociation, and amnesia).

The treatment of such patients often takes much longer, may progress at a much slower rate, and requires a sensitive and highly structured treatment program delivered by a team of trauma specialists.

Where it says "childhood" you have to be aware of the fact most of the men and women serving in the military are under 25 so when they were exposed to prolonged events, the emotional part of their brain was not fully developed.

Do we help them right now or do we wait?

Reflections from conflicts past: No PTSD, but returning can still be a challenge
Filed by KOSU News in Public Insight Network
April 24, 2013

Editor’s note: This is the second post in our series on veterans, reintegration and mental health.

One thing Zack Geneseo wants people to know is that not all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are crippled by their experience.

“Sometimes I think people are surprised that I’m not an alcoholic, covered in tattoos, self-medicating for PTSD, living on the streets,” he says.

Geneseo joined the Army in March 2005. Now a captain in the Army Reserve, he spent much of 2010 and 2011 in Iraq.

Geneseo recently received his law degree from Boston University. He hopes to work in criminal law some day, but with the poor hiring climate in the legal field these days, he says he’ll take what he can get.

Despite his own successes with returning to life after war, Geneseo says he sympathizes with those veterans who have been unable to put the war behind them. He admits that he, too, struggled psychologically and emotionally when he first returned from active duty.

“No matter how many times the Army told me that people have a hard time adjusting, I thought – I knew – that it wasn’t going to happen to me, that I would be just fine because I’m so self-aware,” he says. “I couldn’t have been more naive.”

read more here

Boston Marathon wounds raise anxiety for war veterans

It is not just the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, but all veterans. Bombs have been planted in the earth for generations. For the OEF and OIF veterans, it is pretty raw emotionally. WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War veterans have been thru September 11th so they saw their anxiety level rise back then. This is yet one more reminder of lives on the line doing what this country asked of them. All of them need help right now.

Boston Marathon wounds raise anxiety for Iraq, Afghanistan war veterans
Long Island Newsday
April 21, 2013
By MARTIN C. EVANS

The horrific wounds on the legs of some Boston Marathon spectators were all too similar to those witnessed and experienced by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Timothy Strobel of Shirley, a former Army medic, who rushed to aid the wounded when a Baghdad suicide bomber injured 38 Iraqi civilians at a crowded gas station in 2007, had to turn away from television images streaming out of Boston.

Christopher Levi of Holbrook, a former soldier with the 10th Mountain Division, who during a 2008 roadside bombing in Iraq lost both legs, felt vulnerable as he heard accounts of amputations in Boston.

They are among veterans who said the images from the Boston bombings, which killed three and wounded more than 170, inflamed their own anxieties about their experiences in war.

"It brought me right back there," said Strobel, 30, who served during one of the bloodiest periods of the Iraq War, and who now counsels veterans coping with war-related anxieties. "I had to turn the television off."

Strobel is a program coordinator for the Suffolk County-based PFC Joseph Dwyer Veterans PTSD Peer-to-Peer Program, which works with veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder. After the group's Facebook page urged veterans who were experiencing anxieties related to the Boston bombings to contact the program, more than a half dozen replied.
read more here

Massachusetts National Guardsmen rush to help on video

Boston Marathon Bombing, and the Heroes that took immediate action.
April 15, 2013
Please scroll down to read original post.
Update #13 (05:11 EST)
The two Soldiers that have been seen in various viral videos running up to help the individuals that were mauled by the blast have been identified by one of WTFM Sources.

1LT Stephen Fiola and 1SG Bernard Madore both are members of the 1060th Transportation Company of the Mass. National Guard.

Far right is 1LT Fiola and 1SG Madore is right above the TOUGH.
click link for more

These Soldiers Did the Boston Marathon Wearing 40-Pound Packs. Then They Helped Save Lives.
When the bombs went off, the Tough Ruck 2013 crew sprang into action.
—By Tasneem Raja
Tue Apr. 16, 2013

At 5:20 a.m. on Monday, four hours before the Boston Marathon's elite runners took off, a group of 15 active-duty soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard gathered at the starting line in Hopkinton. Each soldier was in full combat uniform and carried a "ruck," a military backpack weighing about 40 pounds. The rucks were filled with Camelbacks of water, extra uniforms, Gatorade, changes of socks—and first-aid and trauma kits. It was all just supposed to be symbolic.

"Forced marches" or "humps" are a regular part of military training, brisk walking over tough terrain while carrying gear that could help a soldier survive if stranded alone. These soldiers, participating in "Tough Ruck 2013," were doing the 26 miles of the Boston Marathon to honor comrades killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, or lost to suicide and PTSD-related accidents after coming home.
read more here

Boston bombing event holds lessons for all

There is the fact that survivors saw what harm was caused by two people but they also saw what goodness is within more people. Total strangers rushed to help risking their own lives. One bomb blew up and they must have been aware another one could blow up too but they didn't think about themselves. Even when the second bomb blew up, more rushed to help the wounded. That goes a long way toward healing but so does the fact so many veterans have shown up at the hospitals to encourage the patients trying to recover from missing limbs and wounds that will leave scars for the rest of their lives.

The thing people always tend to overlook is how important it is to know someone gives a damn about you. The attack sites have been paved over now and the earth has been healed. The people will heal too with a lot of care. The witnesses will need care but I think the strangers that rushed to help may need a bit more.

Impact of terrorist attack varies from other tragedies
April 22, 2013
By TARA BAIRD, USC School of Journalism


Pascoe: Miranda warning not needed for suspect

At 2:50 p.m. Monday, Boston held a moment of silence to remember the victims of last week’s bombings. Read more

COLUMBIA -- Natural disasters are devastating.

Tragedies caused by man are a different kind of pain.

“There is a fundamental difference between natural events and terrorist events,” said Susan Cutter, a geography professor at the University of South Carolina.

“In most instances, you kind of know if you’re living in an area that’s prone to the forces of nature,” she said. Terrorism, on the other hand, is not anticipated.

Cutter, who is also the director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at USC, has conducted field studies on similar events, such as Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

“Terrorism. It can happen any time, anywhere to anyone,” she said.
read more here

This also offers a lesson in judging others. Many employers are reluctant when it comes to hiring veterans because they are afraid of PTSD. While there is no need to fear any of them, the fact is, people do. This is a good time to point out that while employers may know a veteran has come back from combat, they never know what else other people experienced in their own lives.

Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and phobias (social phobia, agoraphobia, and specific phobia).

Approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder.

1,2
Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders or substance abuse.1 Most people with one anxiety disorder also have another anxiety disorder. Nearly three-quarters of those with an anxiety disorder will have their first episode by age 21.5

Some of the people in Boston during the bombings will end up with PTSD but no one think twice about hiring them. It just won't be an issue. So how is it an issue when it comes to hiring veterans? A lot of the people rushing to help, risking their lives for the wounded were in fact veterans. Kind of makes you stop and think about judging anyone doesn't it?

Veterans Getting Help Through Photography Class

Veterans Getting Help Through Photography Class
Class is helping former soliders cope with post-traumatic stress disorder
By Damian Trujillo
Tuesday, Apr 23, 2013

They spent the morning snapping pictures of anything that seemed interesting to them.

“Wow, that’s a nice picture,” said Ramon Ontiveros before he clicked his camera. “I’m learning to be a decent husband. I can’t believe how bad I treated my wife … I see my feelings in my pictures I take.”

Ontiveros fought in the Vietnam War, and now he’s enrolled in a photography therapy class at the Menlo Park Division of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

The class is part of an alternative therapy program for veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental illnesses.

“It’s an alternate way for them to be able to talk about and express themselves as part of their recovery,” art therapist Jeffrey Stadler said.

The program began last summer and averages 10 veterans per 6-week class.

“I was the target of military sexual trauma in boot camp,” U.S. Army veteran Christine Stout-Holmes said.

The veteran said she held in her abuse and became a good soldier, but was no longer able to hold in her depression, and sought help at the VA.
read more here

Death of Fort Hood Soldier under investigation

Fort Hood: Officials Release Name Of Soldier Found Dead At His Home
Our Town Texas

FORT HOOD (April 23, 2013)--Fort Hood officials on Tuesday released the name of a soldier who was found dead Sunday at his home off-post.

Spc. Elliot Rafael Davis, 26, of Georgia, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at his Bell County home just after 7 a.m. Sunday.

Davis entered the military in January 2008 as an ammunition specialist and arrived at Fort Hood shortly after.
read more here

Claim: Pill mill tied to Fort Riley soldier overdoses

Claim: Pill mill tied to Fort Riley soldier overdoses
Apr. 23, 2013
By Heather Hollingsworth
The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, MO. — A Kansas doctor was charged Tuesday with operating a pill mill for painkillers and antidepressants after police and Fort Riley officials raised concerns about overdoses — some of them involving soldiers and their families.

The U.S. attorney’s office alleged in a criminal complaint that Michael P. Schuster, 53, conspired to illegally distribute controlled substances. The charges were filed the same day that the FBI searched Schuster’s clinic, called Manhattan Pain and Spine. The clinic is in Manhattan, Kan., about 15 miles from Fort Riley, a U.S. Army base that is home to the 1st Infantry Division.

“Prescription drug abuse is the nation’s fastest growing drug problem,” said U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom in a written statement. “Health care providers are a critical part of our effort to keep the public safe. Without proper controls, prescription drugs are just as dangerous as any street drug.”
read more here

Concern over anti-psychotic drug given to soldiers

Concern over anti-psychotic drug given to soldiers
ABC News
Lateline By Michael Vincent
April 24, 20113
Updated 11 minutes ago

Psychiatrists in Australia and the United States are calling for a review of the use of anti-psychotic medications to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Australia's Department of Defence has confirmed an almost 600 per cent increase in the use of one particular anti-psychotic, Seroquel, in just five years.

Soldiers have told Lateline the drug, originally intended to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is being prescribed just to help them sleep.

Lateline spoke to special forces soldiers from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. All have PTSD, and some have received psychological counselling, but others have not.

All say military doctors or GPs sanctioned by the Defence Department prescribed them Seroquel as a sedative.

One soldier, who Lateline has called Trooper M to protect his identity, has been a user of the drug for the past year.

He is only 23 and served as a special forces soldier on one tour of Afghanistan that left him with anxiety and nightmares.

Trooper M sought help when the nightmares became too much.

"So the mental health nurse liaised with one of the medical officers and from that... before I saw a psychiatrist or anything like that, they decided that Seroquel would be the choice of medication."

He says he does not know why, and just followed what he was being told.

One night, he accidentally took 400mg.

"I didn't wake up for over 24 hours. It was a bit of a wake-up call," he said.
read more here