mTBI, PTSD and Stress (Catch All)

[jmm99]

and also that the variations over time be kept in mind. For example, the data for the 20-24 years male cohort has a variation from 20.2 (2003) to 28.0 (1994).

To also make it clear, I don't dispute that in-theatre vets (vs. out-of-theatre vets) have higher risk factors, especially in the earlier years after discharge; though my beliefs in that regard are very much influenced by anecdotal evidence (my dad, WWII combat in an assault rifle company). We just shouldn't get carried away with how "high" those risk factors are.

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

and also that the variations over time be kept in mind. For example, the data for the 20-24 years male cohort has a variation from 20.2 (2003) to 28.0 (1994).

IIRC, Boomers have shown a higher suicide rate than those born before or after. I wonder how/if that ties into service in Vietnam.

[jmm99]

Suicide Among Adults Aged 35–64 Years — United States, 1999–2010.

Which first - chicken or egg ?

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

Pre-broadcast publicity for tomorrow's BBC Panorama on this issue, so some UK papers have picked up the story:

In 2012 seven serving soldiers were confirmed to have killed themselves, while a further 14 died in suspected suicides but inquests had yet to be held, the Ministry of Defence have confirmed. But as the Government does not record suicides among former soldiers, the number of feared much higher.

An investigation by the BBC's Panorama found at least 29 veterans also took their own lives last year, bringing the total number of suicides to 50 compared with 40 soldiers who died in action in Afghanistan during the same period.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...s-suggest.html

Link to BBC summary:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23259865

[ganulv]

How much does culture matter for P.T.S.D.? by David J. Morris

There is quite a bit of compare-and-contrast of British and American P.T.S.D. rates in the piece. Excerpts:

In [Ben Shephard’s] provocative book, “A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century,” he describes a historical cycle that governs the treatment of war stress: “the problem is at first denied, then exaggerated, then understood, and finally, forgotten.”*

One of the largest studies done on combat-related P.T.S.D., published in The Lancet at the height of the Iraq War, reported that around four per cent of British veterans had been diagnosed with the disorder. A meta-analysis of studies on American veterans deployed to Iraq found that the rate of P.T.S.D. diagnosis ranges from 1.4 to thirty-one per cent, although the range is typically between ten to seventeen per cent. In a 2010 study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, Neil Greenberg, of the Academic Centre for Defence Mental Health, at King’s College London, found an incidence rate of 3.4 per cent.

*Shephard’s is not an original insight, but it is worth restating. One of my favorite anthropologists, W.H.R. Rivers, was publicly discussing what we now know as P.T.S.D. almost a century ago.

[davidbfpo]

'Commander Salamander' has added a commentary on the USNI blogsite, within which he comments on PTSD, alongside why service leadership fails to offer leadership:

Compared with other countries, the United States diagnoses PTSD cases at improbably high rates. Recent PTSD rates in the U.S. have reached as high as 30%, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By contrast, only 2% of Danish soldiers deployed to Afghanistan (and, per capita, the Danes have done as much fighting as anyone) are diagnosed with significant PTSD symptoms, according to a study published in December in Psychological Science. One consequence of high rates of PTSD diagnosis is that the treatment is too often conducted outside a military environment. Soldiers are deprived of what traditionally has been the best medicine: talking to other soldiers.

GBR, DNK, EST, CAN, NLD, AUS all fought relatively caveat free with us in AFG, especially DNK. That is a fair comparison. Either we argue that the average American servicemember is less hardy than your average Dane, that the Danes don’t care about their soldiers, or that there is something wrong with our reporting and classification system. I vote for #3.

Link:http://blog.usni.org/2013/08/19/2013...28USNI+Blog%29

[Red Rat]

A straw poll of some two dozen serving officers at my current location revealed that while we had all come across suicides among serving and retired peers and subordinates, all of them appeared to have been linked to non-PTSD issues.

This ad hoc military judgement panel felt that the relentless focus on PTSD was obscuring a larger issue of mental health in the round and while there was awareness of some people who had suffered with PTSD, these were very much the exception; more prevalent were people with stress, depression and other mental health issues.

certainly the UK often recruits (especially the combat arms) from a strata of society where disrupted backgrounds are the norm, military life is in itself very disruptive and then on discharge we return personnel inevitably back from whence they came.