PTSD: New War on An Old Foe
Big changes underway at the VA could mean better treatment for thousands of vets. A bureaucracy in transition.
They are the invisible wounds of war, the battered minds and bruised spirits we have come to recognize as posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. By one estimate, more than 300,000 of the nearly 2 million U.S. servicemen and -women deployed since 9/11 suffer from the often-debilitating condition, with symptoms that include flashbacks and nightmares, emotional numbness, relationship problems, trouble sleeping, sudden anger, and drug and alcohol abuse. The number of cases is expected to climb as the war in Afghanistan continues, and could ultimately exceed 500,000, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University. Mental-health experts say PTSD is the primary reason suicides in the military are at an all-time high; 256 soldiers took their own lives in 2008, the highest number since that data was first tracked, in 1980.
As NEWSWEEK and others have reported, the Department of Veterans Affairs has struggled to address this mental-health crisis, and thousands of veterans have suffered as a result. Now, thanks to new leadership and a new openness to collaboration, things appear to be changing at the VA, if slowly. Veterans still often face insufferably long waits for treatment and steep bureaucratic hurdles when filing disability claims. But there is a new sense of urgency under Eric Shinseki, the retired four-star Army general appointed to head the agency by President Obama, to change the culture within the 77-year-old VA. Shinseki has made PTSD a priority, with efforts underway to address concerns from the way claims are processed to the development of new, more effective treatments. "Brain injuries and the psychological consequences of battle are not new to combat," Shinseki tells NEWSWEEK. "We know from past wars that with early diagnosis and treatment, people can get better."
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Most veterans interviewed for this story agree with Sullivan that the VA has a long way to go. Despite Shinseki's good intentions, veterans aren't necessarily feeling the love, at least not yet. Dorman Branch, a Marine sergeant from Clinton, La., who saw heavy combat in Afghanistan, was diagnosed with severe PTSD and degenerative disc disease and is on 80 percent disability. He says that to see a doctor he has to drive 130 miles to New Orleans. There is no rural outreach program yet in Branch's neck of the woods. "I don't see any real positive changes" in the VA, says Branch, who has trouble sleeping, hearing loss, memory loss, severe headaches, and anger issues. "All they do is give me Wellbutrin [medication] for my depression and ask me why I think I'm raging. Then it's 'see you in six months.' I can't work. My wife is in school. I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease five years ago and just got surgery recently. I have a great caseworker, but she's the only one who's really helped us."
To date, the VA has diagnosed 111,239 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with PTSD, but has treated only a small percentage of those. Of course, studies from RAND and many others suggest that the number of veterans with PTSD is far greater. But to date the agency is aware only of the veterans who actually contact it seeking treatment; its efforts to proactively identify other sufferers are just getting underway. Meanwhile, the lives of far too many veterans with untreated PTSD and unprocessed disability claims tragically deteriorate. And the problem will likely get worse before it gets better: up to 1 million new veteran patients are expected to flood the VA by the end of 2013, including an unprecedented number of women (11 percent of the total troops deployed since 9/11 are women). Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recognizes the importance of the VA getting a handle on this crisis. At a defense forum last month, recalling a meeting he had last year with a group of homeless veterans from past wars, Mullen said he worries that if efforts don't improve quickly, the nation could see another generation of down-and-out former soldiers on the streets. "Shame on us if we don't figure it out this time around to make sure that doesn't happen," Mullen said.
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Posted By: Zenara @ 10/03/2009 5:05:16 AM
While I sincerely appreciate the trauma that U.S. servicemen have endured and sympathize with their plight, I am always floored by the media's ignorance of PTSD. The image of the shaking soldiers in WWII is ony one terrible facet of PTSD. There is a terrible epidemic of abused women and children now suffering from PTSD. Domestic Violence caused my PTSD, only my war lasted 20 years. Before that there was the child molestation, abuse and neglect of my childhood. Please don't paint a single dimension of PTSD. You are only showing the tip of the iceberg. Battered women and abused children are the walking wounded of a civil war that don't make into the media's limited coverage of PTSD.