PTSD Associated With More, Longer Hospitalizations, Study Shows

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with more hospitalizations, longer hospitalizations and greater mental healthcare utilization in urban primary care patients. These findings appear in the current issue of Medical Care.

PTSD Increases Hospitalization Rates in Urban Poor

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among poor, urban residents and those who suffer it have more and longer hospital stays, researchers here said.
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Army's New PTSD Treatments: Yoga, Reiki, 'Bioenergy'

The military is scrambling for new ways to treat the brain injuries and post-traumatic stress of troops returning home from war. And every kind of therapy -- no matter how far outside the accepted medical form -- is being considered. The Army just unveiled a $4 million program to investigate everything from "spiritual ministry, transcendental meditation, [and] yoga" to "bioenergies such as Qi gong, Reiki, [and] distant healing" to mend the psyches of wounded troops.
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Nurses Help Keep Patients From Experiencing the Nightmare That is PTSD

What is known is patients who develop PTSD after an ICU stay re-experience what they perceive to be horrific events long after the stress of the ICU experience are ovER.
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Does Writing Help Overcoming Traumatic Stress?

assignments have shown promising results in treating traumatic symptomatology. Yet no studies have compared their efficacy to the current treatment of choice, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
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Substance Abusers With PTSD Face Poorer Outcomes

The researchers found that up to half of people who sought help for substance abuse disorders (SUDs) had PTSD and that having PTSD predicted a more severe course and worse outcome for an SUD, such as more family problems, less employment, and more serious psychological symptoms.
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A fifth of soldiers at PTSD risk

More than five years of recycling soldiers through Iraq and Afghanistan's battlefields is creating record levels of mental health problems, as about three in 10 GIs on their third tour admit emotional illnesses, according to an Army study released Thursday.
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Alpha Company hit hard by post-traumatic stres

Of all the things that Alpha Company has had to struggle with since it came home from Iraq, the most pervasive may be post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
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Poll: Many in college stressed by knowing soldiers in war zones

Half of the students surveyed said they personally know someone serving in Iraq or Afghanistan or who had been deployed there. Of that group, just over half said they had experienced stress because of the person's service, including nearly one in six who said it had caused them a lot of anxiety.
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Female veterans report more sexual, mental trauma

Even though she's been home from the war for more than 2½ years, she's now fighting another battle -- this one with depression, nightmares, sleeplessness and anger. She says all of it is caused by her time in Iraq.
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Does Writing Help Overcoming Traumatic Stress?

Writing assignments have shown promising results in treating traumatic symptomatology. Yet no studies have compared their efficacy to the current treatment of choice, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).
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The invisible wounds of the Iraq War

At night, he is haunted by nightmares and images of war. During the day, he has panic attacks and can't concentrate.
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Trauma, kidnap and death: all in a day's work for journalists in Iraq

Five years after the invasion, the former Times Baghdad correspondent reports on the war's uniquely grim toll on colleagues she worked with, and explains why they still take such enormous risks
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Suicides Seen Among Vets Treated By VA

CBS News has obtained never-before seen patient data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, detailing the growing number of suicide attempts among vets recently treated by the VA.

The data reveals a marked overall increase - from 462 attempts in 2000 to 790 in 2007.
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Does Stress Damage The Brain?

PTSD is associated with several abnormalities in brain structure and function.
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Genes and Post-Traumatic Stress

an individual's response to trauma — whether in battle, or as result of a natural disaster, a violent crime or some other horror — depends not only on the intensity of that trauma but also on a complex interplay of past experiences and genetic factors. A new paper, published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, provides remarkable support for this explanation and identifies a specific gene that influences susceptibility to PTSD.
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something pretty radical

Due to the lack of treatment options for PTSD, the US Army is now considering something pretty radical to treat the problem – ecstasy.
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Bullying a serious job hazard

The exhaustion led to anger, forgetfulness and numbness in his lips and fingers. A psychologist eventually diagnosed him with work-related post-traumatic stress disorder
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Does Stress Damage the Brain?

They found that the gray matter density of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain involved in emotional functioning, was reduced in veterans with PTSD, but not in their twins who had not experienced combat. According to Dr. Pitman, “this finding supports the conclusion that the psychological stress resulting from the traumatic stressor may damage this brain region, with deleterious emotional consequences.”
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Post-traumatic stress disorder caused by both genes and environment

Both genetic and environmental factors affect people's risk of developing post-traumatic stress, according to new research that illustrates how nature and nurture combine to shape health and behaviour.
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Gene May Help Explain Stress Disorder

Groundbreaking research suggests genes help explain why some people can recover from a traumatic event while others suffer post-traumatic stress disorderLINK

Most N.Korean Refugees Suffer Stress Disorders: Report

Seventy-seven percent of North Korean refugees in China are found suffering stress disorders, an expert report says.
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Bad News on the Doorstep: Another Iraq Vet Suicide

"The issue of PTSD is worse than I have ever seen it, and I have been doing this for 20 years now."
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Testament of 'an honest man and a soldier'

Whether you call it battle fatigue, shell shock, PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) or OSI (operational stress injury), the mental trauma that can occur in conflict areas is still barely understood. It is often governed, particularly in the military, by ignorance and hidden by a culture of macho denial. Why some are affected, while others remain apparently uninjured, by the same circumstances remains largely a mystery.
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