Doctors study link between combat and brain disease

Doctors study link between combat and brain disease
By Seth Robbins, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Saturday, January 23, 2010


The California neuropathologist who discovered damage in the brains of former professional football players has found similar damage in the brain of a deceased Vietnam veteran — a potentially groundbreaking finding that suggests combat troops who suffer head trauma might be susceptible to a degenerative brain disease.

Dr. Bennet Omalu, an expert in forensic neuropathology and the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, Calif., said the 61-year-old Army veteran had a history of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as psychotic behavior, much of which had been attributed to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

But the autopsy showed something else: an abnormal buildup of harmful proteins in the vet’s brain, the same proteins linked to repetitive concussions in boxers, and now football players.

“This is a sentinel case,” Omalu said. “The brain findings in this deceased Army veteran are similar to the brain findings in the retired contact-sport athletes. Now, we need to look at more brains.”
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Doctors study link between combat and brain disease

Local Faith Leaders Team Up to Fight Combat Stress Disorders

Local Faith Leaders Team Up to Fight Combat Stress Disorders


By: Patti Moon

p.moon@krdo.com

COLORADO SPRINGS – Dozens of faith leaders say it's their responsibility to help soldiers and their families deal with combat stress disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury.

About 70% of soldiers who need medical attention don't seek help. Veterans say many times it's because they are scared it will damage their careers or soldiers are simply in denial.

That's why the Faith Community Education Collaborative sponsored a free training on Thursday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs. Faith leaders say more church communities need to get involved in helping soldiers and their families.
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Local Faith Leaders Team Up to Fight Combat Stress Disorders

Who Killed Staff Sergeant Amy Seyboth Tirador?

Soldier's mother expects suicide finding

Military says Seyboth-Tirador probe continues
January 22, 2010 4:50 PM
The mother of a U.S. soldier who grew up in Colonie says she expects military investigators to to conclude her daughter killed herself.

"It's going to come down a suicide," says Colleen Murphy, "and then there's going to be a fight."

Murphy says she does not believe her daughter's death was suicide and suggested to CBS 6 News reporter Craig Smith the prospect of exhuming her daughter's body to help prove it.

According to the military, 29-year-old Staff Sergeant Amy Seyboth Tirador died last year on November 4 from a non-combat related injury.

Murphy and Tirador's father, Gerard Seyboth have said their daughter was shot in the back of the head and they say it was not an accident. They have not suggested any theories on what may have happened. They say their daughter worked as an Arabic-speaking translator and interrogator in Iraq. Seyboth described his daughter as a "high-profile target" because of the nature of her work.

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http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/says-1270442-expects-soldier.html

Report claims Roanoke Veterans Affairs office mismanaged disability claims

Report claims Roanoke Veterans Affairs office mismanaged disability claims

A federal Office of Inspector General report claims employees with Roanoke’s regional office of veteran’s affairs mismanaged several disability claims.

Between August 25th to September 2nd of last year, the report reads several inspectors were at the office inside Roanoke’s Poff federal building.

The inspectors looked at everything from the contents of some employees’ desks to what was in their trash cans.

The report found the office did not meet 6 of 14 important operational areas.

It also found employees mismanaged the claims of several vets.

Inspectors looked at a sample of claims filed between January and March of 2009.

Of the 901 disability claims filed during that time frame, the sample studied 118 of them.

Inspectors found 29 of those 118 claims contained errors.

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Roanoke Veterans Affairs office mismanaged disability claims

When is counseling dangerous? When it's done wrong

Readers of this blog know my history with life threatening events in my own personal life. All the training I've taken, research, listening to veterans as well as living with my own, along the way I learned what separated them from me. I talked every time after until I was done talking. People listened and some added their advice beyond just telling me to get over it. They got me to see it in a different way when it got to a point there was nothing new for me to discover about how the event "hit" me. I believe so much in this that I became a chaplain, trained on crisis intervention and will keep taking more training. We can get ahead of this but only if we do it right.

So please think of the fact that anything can do more harm than good depending on how it is done and how long it takes to do it. The key is to be there to listen and not to make them talk. Give them a ear they feel safe with hearing them and let them know you care.

When Counseling is Dangerous
Psychological debriefing after disasters may do more harm than good.
Published on January 19, 2010
By Susan Pinker

Now that another huge humanitarian disaster is upon us, teachers, psychologists, counselors and social workers should be reminded that talking--and encouraging those who have suffered losses-- to talk and talk more--about their painful experiences is not the route to recovery. In fact, asking people to rehash terrifying events can be dangerous. Strong research evidence shows that psychological debriefing not only is ineffective, it can exacerbate trauma.

"People who received psychological debriefing exhibited more severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder than controls; the intervention increased the risk of the stress disorder, and critical incident stress debriefing, in particular, was potentially harmful,"write Magdalena Szumilas, Yifeng Wei, and Stan Kutcher in an analysis of the research on psychological debriefing just published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
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When Counseling is Dangerous