Kevlar for the Mind: Virtual reality can help veterans with PTSD symptoms - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Kevlar for the Mind: Virtual reality can help veterans with PTSD symptoms - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

In one of my first columns here, I talked about the use of virtual reality to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. High-tech visual and audio equipment is used to simulate the combat environment, helping service members reduce the anxiety and distress associated with the most troubling aspects of their combat experience.

At a recent convention on using technology to treat physical and psychiatric disorders, I was reminded of how interesting these technologies are.

Consider someone who is dealing with a phobia — fear of snakes, heights, flying, whatever. In the past, psychologists were often forced to take the patient to the zoo, the top of a building or on an airplane to help the person overcome fear. As you might imagine, this was expensive and logistically challenging.

However, by using virtual reality, psychologists can simulate the stressful situations — with nothing more than a headset and a comfortable chair.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/offduty/health/offduty-kevlar-for-the-mind-virtual-reality-can-help-with-ptsd-symptoms-052311w/

By Bret A. Moore

Army reports significant jump in stress levels for combat troops

Army combat troops deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 had significantly higher levels of acute stress than in 2009, the service said in a Mental Health Assessment Team report released Thursday.

But the MHAT report, completed in February, shows much lower levels of depression than in troops surveyed in post-deployment health assessments over the past year, as documented in a March report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, based on data compiled by the Defense Medical Surveillance System.

The center also reported last month that throughout the Defense Department there were more hospitalizations for mental disorders than for any other major category of illnesses or injuries.

Col. Rebecca Porter, chief of behavioral health for the Army surgeon general, said the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center reports cannot be compared to the MHAT report as the MHAT report dealt only with troops deployed to Afghanistan.

BY BOB BREWIN

Fighting my way back to normal: Life after deployment

PTSD is not this dramatic symptom-driven state of being as it is portrayed in movies and on TV. In general, people with PTSD do not show symptoms all the time. We have become masters at appearing normal and, for the most part, are highly functioning members of society. It is only when we can no longer operate under "normal" that we reveal ourselves and seek help. Even at my worst I was not exhibiting all symptoms all day at the same time.

TECH. SGT. REBECCA COREY JOINT BASE ANACOSTIA-BOLLING PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Women on war front more likely to get post-traumatic stress disorder than men, study finds

More than 230,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, according to a Los Angeles Times story published in April on PTSD among female military personnel. Women, however, have been denied insurance coverage for treatment for PTSD at a higher rate than men because of a former stipulation that required combat experience to qualify for the benefit. Under rule changes enacted last year, any veteran deployed to a combat zone can seek care for PTSD. But the story noted that VA officials know little about the scope of the problem among women.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-ptsd-women-military-20110519,0,6360607.story

By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times

Warrior Games participants fight to overcome injuries

The unpleasant aftermath of combat injuries is on display during the Warrior Games, the second annual event featuring seven sports for about 220 wounded, injured and ill service members that continued Wednesday and runs through Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Most participants on the Army team, including Ranker, a sergeant first class who suffered traumatic brain injury from four blows to the head, pass through Warrior Transition Units that facilitate a return to active duty or an assimilation into civilian life. More than 7,300 soldiers, all needing at least six months of treatment, are stationed at 29 WTUs across the country – part of a $983 million effort by the Army to modernize healing campuses.

By:BRIAN GOMEZ

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/warrior-118341-fighting-games.html#ixzz1MvHqSL3q

New Research Shows Promise For TBI Treatment

They are identifying drugs that can reduce the accumulation of proteins in the brain that are a result of traumatic brain injury and thus halt the progression of the injury.
It is the focal accumulation of an abnormal form of the tau protein, particularly in the frontal lobes, that causes central nervous system dysfunction. 
This is similar to what has been recently described in the National Football League (NFL). Currently there are no drugs available to stop, or even slow, tau production or aggregation. 
The identification of such drugs is an urgent medical and societal issue. 


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/225444.php

Educating cops about PTSD

Veterans with untreated PTSD are more likely to wind up in the criminal justice system.

JOHN GALVAN: You get rage you can't understand and you can't control it. When I got arrested I was telling the police, "You need to get me away from this situation. There's a high potential that I'm gonna do something that's gonna be really bad." Better to get arrested and get some psych help than be free.

But getting veterans like John Galvan the help they need shouldn't come only after a jail sentence. So a pilot program is helping train law enforcement officers to identify distressed veterans and help them diffuse as ituation before it escalates to crisis and arrest. In the second part of KALW News' series on returning veterans, reporter Lilah Crews-Pless takes us to a Combat to Community training near Sacramento.

By Lilah Crews-Ples

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/kalw/detail?entry_id=89099#ixzz1MjoXRByL

Who Gets Better from Combat Stress (And How)

There are several studies claiming a 70-percent improvement rate for returning warriors who are treated for combat stress with various cognitive behavioral therapies and/or prolonged exposure strategies. But this is a misleading number.

What this doesn't take into account is the fact that of those with persistent combat stress, only half will seek out treatment in the first place.

The main barrier to seeking help isn't stigma, the reason that's usually cited as the primary problem; surveys show it's actually distrust of mental health providers, both civilian and military, that keeps our service members away.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belleruth-naparstek/who-gets-better-from-comb_b_853073.html

After Brain Injuries, Troops Hit The Mental Gym

Wounded troops often spend months in physical therapy to regain strength in their damaged bodies. Now, the military is trying something similar for military personnel with injured brains.

The Department of Defense is using computerized brain training programs to help personnel with traumatic brain injuries.

The approach is intended for people like 1st Lt. Frederick Simpson.

About a year ago, Simpson was knocked unconscious by the explosion of a rocket-propelled grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan. He was also struck by a bullet that shattered his left shinbone.

Over the next few months, doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington rebuilt his leg. But Simpson says there wasn't any operation to fix what the explosion had done to his brain.

"I would get confused," he says. "I had real poor short-term memory — real poor long-term memory, for that matter. I had trouble staying focused. I would be talking to somebody and then I would just kind of drift off."

Simpson would also forget where he was going or whether he'd turned off a burner on the stove. So he started visiting the Brain Fitness Center at Walter Reed. It's one of several centers set up by the Defense Department in the past few years to help people with brain injuries recover.

by JON HAMILTON

How Fear Changes What We Hear

How does fear alter memory? A new study reveals that it can literally change our perception, a process that may help researchers better understand post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other anxiety disorders and possibly conditions like autism.

Researchers have long known that fear doesn't tend to stay restricted to one type of scary experience. For example, the sound of a backfiring car may make a combat veteran dive for cover, even though he knows he's no longer on the battlefield and even though the sound he heard is different from actual gunfire.

Or a childhood run-in with a vicious German shepherd could translate into a fear of all dogs, even tiny Chihuahuas.

By MAIA SZALAVITZ

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/09/how-fear-changes-what-we-hear/#ixzz1MFxivDiT

UH To Study Post-Deployment Experience of National Guard Spouses

UH To Study Post-Deployment Experience of National Guard Spouses


The University of Hawaii is leading a national study on the impact on marriages when Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers return home from combat. They're seeking civilian spouses and partners of Guard and Reserve soldiers to participate.

"When deployed Guard and Reserve soldiers return from combat they go directly back into civilian communities," Cynthia J’Anthony, principal investigator on the study, wrote in a press release. "Their spouses are thrust into caring for and coping with someone who may have been profoundly affected by combat."


Posted by Robert Brown

War veterans find comfort in riding

American war veterans — some of whom suffer from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder — are learning to care for horses and ride them as part of their transition back to normal life.

It's called the Horses for Heroes program, a national endeavor funded entirely by the nonprofit Bit-by-Bit organization. It began this past December.

"It's an amazing program," Bit-by-Bit program director Susan March said. "A lot of the guys we're seeing right now have [Post TraumaticStress Disorder] and they are emotionally wounded. And a lot of them have other issues. It's basically to help them re-enter society, to get out of the house."

REBECCA DELLAGLORIA

A Mother's Day salute: Moms Who Serve

When we think about our armed forces and the sacrifices they make, we probably don't think about this: 72,682 are mothers.
These active-duty moms serve in every branch, at home and overseas, on land and at sea, in nearly every military specialty. Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, 212,000 women have been deployed there and to Afghanistan, thousands of whom have children back home.
The work is sweaty, dangerous and demanding. But it also is rewarding: A 2008 study reports the No. 1 reason women stay in the armed forces is job satisfaction.

Written by

Patricia Kime

Q&A: How the Army handles behavioral health issues

In an interview about mental health issues in the Army, Col. Rebecca I. Porter, chief of the behavioral health division of the Office of the Army’s Surgeon General, discussed the responsibilities of Army leaders in managing their troops’ mental health. Her remarks are about general practices and policies, and do not refer to any one particular soldier.

By Ellen Nakashima

Pre-deployment mental woes make combat stress more likely

Civilians who don the uniform and march into war carrying the psychological burden of previous trauma -- or of afflictions such as depression or anxiety disorder --  are far more likely than their mentally healthy comrades to suffer battle-related stress following deployment, new research has found.

A study published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry also found that women, African Americans and those with less education were slightly more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following their return from a war zone. Less surprisingly, sustaining a battle injury also boosted the odds, as did the length of time an individual spent in a wartime theater of operations.

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

Helping Other Vets Fight Their Battles

After basic training at Fort Dix, N. J., and advanced infantry training down in the Deep South at Fort Polk, La., he was in South Vietnam’s sultry Mekong Delta by January 1967, far away from the snows of the Buffalo Niagara region.

But Kunkel hardly had time to catch the rays of the Vietnam sun. Blazing fire-fights were often the order of the day.

“It was surreal. I was at small-fire

support bases. The vast majority of the time we were fighting against the Viet Cong. It was seldom you saw them. It was like fighting a ghost.”

http://www.khou.com/news/Technology-helping-veterans-with-PTSD-TBI-in-Houston-120900189.html

HOUSTON -- Doctors at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center have turned to technology to help combat veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Jury.

Medical experts said hard numbers were almost impossible to calculate, but some estimates suggested as many as two out of ten veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq have PTSD; many also have TBI.

"They even said that if I would ever come out of the coma they would say that I would be a vegetable," said Javier Negrete, a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq in the early 2000s.


by Alex Sanz

Defense.gov News Article: DOD, USDA Announce Family Support Partnership

Defense.gov News Article: DOD, USDA Announce Family Support Partnership

CHICAGO, April 28, 2011 – The Defense and Agriculture departments formally recognized a 25-year working relationship yesterday as well as a budding partnership aimed at improving military families’ lives.

Robert L. Gordon III, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and policy, and Cathie E. Woteki, USDA’s chief scientist and undersecretary for research, education and economics, signed a proclamation in recognition of the DOD and USDA Extension-Military Partnership during the opening session of their joint 2011 Family Resilience Conference here.

“This exciting, growing partnership between our two departments provides us with the opportunity to work more closely with family, child and youth researchers and community-capacity building experts,” Gordon said. “They’ve studied and developed some of America’s most promising practices for strengthening communities –- the same communities where our military members and their families live.”

By Elaine Sanchez

Defense.gov News Article: DOD Issues Purple Heart Standards for Brain Injury

Defense.gov News Article: DOD Issues Purple Heart Standards for Brain Injury

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2011 – U.S. service members have long been eligible to receive the Purple Heart Medal for the signature wounds of the current wars -– mild traumatic brain injuries and concussions -– but now there is more clarity on how medical criteria for the award are applied, Defense Department officials said yesterday.

The criteria for the Purple Heart award state that the injury must have been caused by enemy action or in action against the enemy and has to be of a degree requiring treatment by a medical officer.

But it may be difficult to determine when a mild traumatic brain injury or a concussive injury that does not result in a loss of consciousness is severe enough to require treatment by a medical officer. “This is why we created this baseline standard,” DOD spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said.

By Jim Garamone