We received the following summary from the VA’s Early Bird News Wire:
From today’s VA Early Bird News Summary
Soldier Suicides Down But Many Vets Diagnosed With Mental Health Disorders. The AP (7/17, Jelinek) reports, “Suicides reported among” US soldiers “have tapered off from extreme highs of early this year amid intense Army efforts to stem the deaths, but officials are not yet ready to say they have turned a corner on the problem.” On Thursday, “Army leadership said…they hope a newly launched mental health study will help identify what is causing the self-inflicted deaths and what programs are best for preventing them. Separately Thursday, other researchers reported that 37 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking care at Veterans Affairs clinics for the first time are being diagnosed with mental health disorders.” That figure is “higher than some other estimates of the conflicts’ toll, and researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center said that may be because people still in the military are more reluctant to seek care.”
The New York Times (7/17, Dao, A10, 1.06M) says the VA study “found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.” The study, which “also found that the number of veterans found to have mental health problems rose steadily the longer they were out” of the service, “joins a growing body of research showing that the prolonged conflicts,
where many troops experience long and repeat deployments, are taking an accumulating psychological toll.”
Bloomberg News (7/17, Olmos) reports, “More than 1.6 million” US soldiers “have served since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001, many of whom have been exposed to prolonged combat and multiple tours of duty, according to the study. In an earlier, smaller study,” VA “researchers found that 25 percent” of US “veterans who sought treatment from 2001 to 2005 suffered from mental health disorders. ‘It’s fair to say that there is a striking rise in numbers’ between the earlier study and the new data published” this week, “said Karen Seal, the principal author” of the later study, which “recommended screening and early intervention programs that would target mental health problems of specific groups of soldiers, such as women and younger men.”
HealthDay (7/17, Reinberg) reports, “More than 40 percent” of the US “soldiers from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seen at VA hospitals suffer from mental health disorders or psychosocial behavioral problems, a new study shows. Curiously, the researchers” from the San Francisco VAMC “found that most mental health diagnoses were not made in the first year that a veteran entered the VA health-care system, but several years after. This finding supports the recent move to extend VA benefits to five years of free” healthcare, “which allows VA doctors the time to detect and treat more mental illness in returning combat veterans, the researchers noted.” Their “report is published in the July 16 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.”
The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger (7/17, Dinges), which also notes the study, reports that almost “22 percent of the soldiers studied were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, researchers said. Another 17 percent were diagnosed with depression, 7 percent had alcohol problems and 3 percent had drug problems.” Veterans advocates “said the new study proves the importance of screening soldiers for mental health problems after they return home.” The Los Angeles Times‘ (7/16, Chong) “Booster Shots” blog also noted this week’s VA study, as did numerous local TV reports in various parts of the country, including WNEP-TV
Wilkes-Barre, PA (7/16, 5:24 p.m. ET) and KERO-TV Bakersfield, CA (7/16, 5:23 p.m. PT).
Vets Suffering From PTSD Said To “Need Help In All Areas.” The Washington (DC) Examiner (7/16, Bright) interviewed Kathyrn Mustard, a licensed clinical social worker with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem, Virginia. Mustard “works in the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit,” where “she helps treat several mental illness forms,” including PTSD, a condition that many “new veterans returning from the Middle East are suffering from.” Mustard told the Examiner that such veterans “need help in all areas,” and it is “hard to gauge the level of ‘success'” in treating them “because I see the most acute patients. However I think the long term counseling tends to deal the best with symptoms from what I’ve seen.”
The WSPA-TV Greenville, SC (7/16, Coursey) website, meanwhile, said the family of 23-year-old Iraq veteran John David Chapman, who recently committed suicide, “would like to see more programs to help our veterans and for families to recognize the signs of depression.” WSPA added, “If you need help, there are resources available. The Department of Veterans Affairs Vet Center Program operates a system of counseling centers for veterans who have served in combat,” and there is one in Greenville. Just call 864-271-2711 for help.”
Planet of the Blind 