Soldier: The Doctors Will See You Now!

The public-health gurus of the American Public Health Association – all 13,000 of them – are meeting in Washington this week to figure out how we can all lead more healthy lives. It's a noble pursuit, to be sure. Some of the studies and sessions investigate issues of interest to the nation's troops. They may sound pretty grim, but here's a rule of thumb that serves me well: the bad news in military-personnel studies tends to be as exaggerated as the good news in military-weapons-development pitches.

Bottom line: our troops are better than the research indicates, and our weapons aren't as good as the research suggests (then, consider the source: the APHA boasts both a peace caucus and a socialist caucus, but no military caucus or troops caucus that I can find).

One thing's for sure: after a decade of war, here's plenty of work for these folks to do. What follows are the titles and excerpts from the summaries of some of the research they're detailing this week:

Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/11/01/soldier-the-doctors-will-see-you-now/#ixzz1clAzzVaT


http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/11/01/soldier-the-doctors-will-see-you-now/

Sleep disorders plague vets with head trauma or PTSD

HONOLULU (Reuters Health) - New research shows high rates of sleep disorders among veterans of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or head injuries.

The study conducted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, found that among some 300 soldiers with PTSD, head injuries or both, more than half had sleep apnea -- a serious interruption of breathing during sleep -- and nearly half had insomnia.

"Sleep complaints were universal," wrote Dr. Jacob Collen and his colleagues in their research summary. Collen's team presented their findings this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Honolulu.

The researchers studied 135 soldiers with PTSD, 116 with traumatic brain injury and 66 with both conditions.

by Rob Goodier

http://www.healthnews.com/en/news/Sleep-disorders-plague-vets-with-head-trauma-or-PTSD/3zmRbtxPT0CAxTEDiUY4D3/