Guardsmen Help Deliver Baby During Blizzard
Feb 12, 2013
American Forces Press Service
by Senior Airman Bonnie K. Harper
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – As a historic blizzard battered Massachusetts in the early hours of Feb. 9, soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard’s Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 181st Infantry Regiment, assisted Worcester emergency medical services personnel in delivering a baby.
Army Sgt. Kenneth Hickey said he, Army Spc. Joshua Catalano and Army Spc. Derek Demelo were assisting Worcester EMS with their operations and supporting the city by using their military field ambulance to access areas unreachable with the city ambulances.
"This is an outstanding example of the strong partnership between the National Guard and local emergency responders,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. L. Scott Rice, Massachusetts adjutant general.
“Together, with the encouraging support of the citizens we serve, we find great strength in our mission.
The soldiers received a call to assist Ericka Bueno, who had gone into labor around 2:30 a.m. and called 911. Within 10 minutes, EMS personnel arrived at her home.
read more here
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A Potential Therapy for PTSD?
A Potential Therapy for PTSD?
TIME
By Remington Nevin
Feb. 13, 2013
The latest edition of the medical journal Psychiatric Annals features military researchers discussing how a procedure known as stellate ganglion block can effectively treat post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD).
Injecting a local anesthetic agent into the sympathetic nerve tissue at the base of the neck — a so-called stellate ganglion block (or SGB) – acts to numb signals which travel to centers deep in the brainstem and brain, commonly thought to be most responsible for PTSD.
The prospect of using a medical procedure to treat PTSD would be a paradigm shift for psychiatry.
That PTSD can be thought of an injury – something whose symptoms could be alleviated by injecting numbing medicine – would support the assertion that former Vice Army Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli has been advocating for some time that PTSD should be renamed PTSI – with an I for injury.
“It might seem counterintuitive that treating the peripheral nervous system could affect psychiatric conditions presumably mediated in the brain,” writes Dr. Cam Ritchie, my colleague and retired Army psychiatrist, in a press release for the journal heralding the news.
Unlike Dr. Ritchie, I am not so surprised by these findings.
My research focuses on the harmful effects of a class of drugs called quinolines, most notably the antimalarial drug mefloquine (or Lariam), which has been widely prescribed to deployed troops in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan at high risk of PTSD. Many of the unpleasant symptoms caused by mefloquine, including anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, and sleep problems, can often be difficult to distinguish from those attributed to PTSD.
read more here
TIME
By Remington Nevin
Feb. 13, 2013
The latest edition of the medical journal Psychiatric Annals features military researchers discussing how a procedure known as stellate ganglion block can effectively treat post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD).
Injecting a local anesthetic agent into the sympathetic nerve tissue at the base of the neck — a so-called stellate ganglion block (or SGB) – acts to numb signals which travel to centers deep in the brainstem and brain, commonly thought to be most responsible for PTSD.
The prospect of using a medical procedure to treat PTSD would be a paradigm shift for psychiatry.
That PTSD can be thought of an injury – something whose symptoms could be alleviated by injecting numbing medicine – would support the assertion that former Vice Army Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli has been advocating for some time that PTSD should be renamed PTSI – with an I for injury.
“It might seem counterintuitive that treating the peripheral nervous system could affect psychiatric conditions presumably mediated in the brain,” writes Dr. Cam Ritchie, my colleague and retired Army psychiatrist, in a press release for the journal heralding the news.
Unlike Dr. Ritchie, I am not so surprised by these findings.
My research focuses on the harmful effects of a class of drugs called quinolines, most notably the antimalarial drug mefloquine (or Lariam), which has been widely prescribed to deployed troops in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan at high risk of PTSD. Many of the unpleasant symptoms caused by mefloquine, including anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, and sleep problems, can often be difficult to distinguish from those attributed to PTSD.
read more here
Vet suicide rate 'not getting better
The numbers are just from death certificates in 21 states and in many cases, the word "veteran" was not included in the certificates. In other words, they don't know how many were not included or how many are in all states.
Vet suicide rate 'not getting better
Feb 12, 2013
The historic pace of troop suicides confounding the military through the war years is following service members into civilian life, according to preliminary analyses of new veteran data.
Although only 4.5% of men ages 18-34 are veterans, veterans account for 10.8% of suicides in that age group, according to statistics from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The numbers are based on death data collected by the VA from 21 states.
"We're very concerned," says Janet Kemp, head of the VA's suicide prevention program. "I think that there's an indication that (active-duty suicide trends) are not getting better and that I'm very worried about this new, younger group of veterans that are coming out and coming into our system."
A similar pattern exists for the men ages 35-54 where 21.7% of suicides are by veterans who make up only 13.9% of that group. The disproportionate pattern goes away for older male veterans, the data show.
"There may be a hint of increased risk for that particular (post-9/11) age group," says Robert Bossarte, a VA epidemiologist.
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PTSD veterans given drugs against guidelines
Not my typo for a change. It was UPI's.
PSTD vets given drugs against guidelines
UPI.com
Feb. 12, 2013
IOWA CITY, Iowa, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are prescribed psychiatric drugs not supported by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs guidelines, researchers say.
Dr. Thad E. Abrams and Dr. Brian Lund, both of the Center for Comprehensive Access and Delivery Research and Evaluation, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and colleagues analyzed fiscal year 2009 electronic pharmacy data from the Veterans Health Administration for 356,958 veterans with PTSD who were receiving medications from VHA prescribers.
read more here
Nancy Grace attacks veterans with PTSD
Nancy Grace attacks veterans with PTSD
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 13, 2013
Before the State of the Union address before Congress, news came out that another Sheriff's Deputy was killed in the line of duty and another one was in surgery because an ex-cop decided law enforcement officials needed to die.
I was flipping back and forth to find out what was going on and Anderson Cooper was on a split screen with Nancy Grace on CNN.
During discussing what cop-killer had done, Grace brought up PTSD. The cop-turned-killer was also an Iraq veteran. Grace proved she knows absolutely nothing about PTSD when she made it sound as if veterans with PTSD should not be allowed to even be on the streets. (I spent the last couple of hours searching for a video on what I saw last night and as soon as I find it, I'll update it here.)
When people like her say such terrible things about our veterans because a minority of them get into trouble, it hurts all of them. Does Grace know that law enforcement is the number one job veterans take along with being firefighters? That many of these officers are also members of the National Guards? Does she understand that veterans are more likely to harm themselves than someone else or have a frickin clue how many combat veterans we have in this country that do not do anything wrong?
Grace-less made is seem as if veterans with PTSD are all too dangerous to walk the streets!
All the talk about guns and PTSD veterans leaves them out of getting help. People like her would make it impossible for a PTSD veteran to keep their jobs as police officers and deputies. The vast majority of them are fantastic and since I spend most of my time with armed veterans with PTSD, I can assure you that what the cop-killer did was out of the ordinary.
Grace said that the military would have know the cop-killer had PTSD and shouldn't have been allowed on the police force. Sure that made sense if you happened to be as uninformed as she is. The truth is less than half of the veterans needing help for PTSD feel comfortable enough to even ask for it. The very fact that their jobs are threatened is one of the reasons they will not ask for help. They fear losing their military careers as well as public servant jobs because people like Grace shoot off their mouths to audiences with even less knowledge.
As with mental illness, the talk now is taking guns away from anyone with mental illness even though again the minority of them commit crimes. They are far more likely to harm themselves than anyone else or become a victim of a crime committed by others.
We're a smarter nation than that. It is high time the people like Grace actually learn what they are talking about before them make it worse on veterans with PTSD. Out of the over 21 million veterans we have in this country we read about few of them committing crimes at all yet Grace attacks PTSD veterans that happen to be an even smaller percentage of veterans. The basic fact is that the members of the media being paid to do their jobs take the easy way out on reporting on them and end up attacking veterans instead of honoring them.
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 13, 2013
Before the State of the Union address before Congress, news came out that another Sheriff's Deputy was killed in the line of duty and another one was in surgery because an ex-cop decided law enforcement officials needed to die.
I was flipping back and forth to find out what was going on and Anderson Cooper was on a split screen with Nancy Grace on CNN.
Nancy Grace breaks the news that alleged cop killer (name removed) may have died Tuesday in the mountains of Big Bear, CA, ending the statewide manhunt.
While multiple law enforcement sources told CNN earlier that (the cop killer's) body is believed to be in a burned cabin, authorities now say the rubble is too hot to examine.
During discussing what cop-killer had done, Grace brought up PTSD. The cop-turned-killer was also an Iraq veteran. Grace proved she knows absolutely nothing about PTSD when she made it sound as if veterans with PTSD should not be allowed to even be on the streets. (I spent the last couple of hours searching for a video on what I saw last night and as soon as I find it, I'll update it here.)
When people like her say such terrible things about our veterans because a minority of them get into trouble, it hurts all of them. Does Grace know that law enforcement is the number one job veterans take along with being firefighters? That many of these officers are also members of the National Guards? Does she understand that veterans are more likely to harm themselves than someone else or have a frickin clue how many combat veterans we have in this country that do not do anything wrong?
Grace-less made is seem as if veterans with PTSD are all too dangerous to walk the streets!
All the talk about guns and PTSD veterans leaves them out of getting help. People like her would make it impossible for a PTSD veteran to keep their jobs as police officers and deputies. The vast majority of them are fantastic and since I spend most of my time with armed veterans with PTSD, I can assure you that what the cop-killer did was out of the ordinary.
Grace said that the military would have know the cop-killer had PTSD and shouldn't have been allowed on the police force. Sure that made sense if you happened to be as uninformed as she is. The truth is less than half of the veterans needing help for PTSD feel comfortable enough to even ask for it. The very fact that their jobs are threatened is one of the reasons they will not ask for help. They fear losing their military careers as well as public servant jobs because people like Grace shoot off their mouths to audiences with even less knowledge.
As with mental illness, the talk now is taking guns away from anyone with mental illness even though again the minority of them commit crimes. They are far more likely to harm themselves than anyone else or become a victim of a crime committed by others.
We're a smarter nation than that. It is high time the people like Grace actually learn what they are talking about before them make it worse on veterans with PTSD. Out of the over 21 million veterans we have in this country we read about few of them committing crimes at all yet Grace attacks PTSD veterans that happen to be an even smaller percentage of veterans. The basic fact is that the members of the media being paid to do their jobs take the easy way out on reporting on them and end up attacking veterans instead of honoring them.
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