Report: PTSD treatments need more research

Report: PTSD treatments need more research

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Oct 18, 2007 12:04:16 EDT

WASHINGTON — There isn’t enough evidence to tell whether most treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder work, according a scientific review that highlights the urgency of finding answers as thousands of suffering veterans return from Iraq.

The one proven treatment: “exposure therapies,” where PTSD patients are gradually exposed to sights and sounds that essentially simulate their trauma to help them learn to cope, advisers to the government reported Thursday.

The lack of evidence for other therapies doesn’t mean patients should give them up — they still should get whatever care their personal doctors deem most promising, stressed Thursday’s report from the Institute of Medicine.

“The take-home message for patients should be that they seek care,” said Dr. David Matchar of Duke University, who co-authored the report.

“That is the way medicine is practiced — we do the best we can with what we’ve got,” he added. But, “we need better.”

While PTSD was first recognized in Vietnam veterans, war is far from its only trigger. Crime, accidents and other trauma can cause it in civilians, too. Sufferers experience flashbacks and physical symptoms that make them feel as though they are reliving the trauma even many years later.

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You would think that after thirty years of having to deal with PTSD, they would have found what works by now, but no one really invested the time or money into finding it until now. The difference is because of the net and the fact we have global communication. This is no longer a secret.