VA needs to treat PTSD with what works

VA agrees with study that some PTSD studies are bias

October 27th, 2007
by Richard Brassaw
A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) exposed much of the studies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as self-serving and biased. The report concluded that exposure-based therapy and cognitive processing therapy were the only proven treatments that were effective for PTSD. The report also concluded that pharmacotherapy requires additional research to prove its effectiveness.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) agrees with the IOM findings that exposure-based therapies are effective treatments for PTSD. Prolonged exposure therapy utilizes techniques to promote confrontation with feared objects, situations, memories, and images. It involves use of psycho-education, breathing retraining, prolonged exposure to the memory of the trauma through imaginary reliving, and repeated exposure to safe situations being avoided because of traumatic fear.
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It's time to get this right! I can fight until I'm blue in the face to get them to go for help, but if the help is not working, if it is not the best and if it is not working, then what good will it do? What's the point of still doing what does not work?

If my husband received help when he came back from Vietnam, if he knew what it was in 1971, then all indications are he would have recovered and not turned chronic. Back then there was ignorance as the excuse of the military and of the veterans dealing with PTSD. It was the excuse of the family to not see the signs and expect them to just get over it. We no longer have that excuse. We haven't had that excuse since the 90's! With so many Vietnam veterans coming back from their tours and experience of research providing in detail what PTSD is, it is a disgrace this nation never mobilized to address it. I still can't figure out why they are still emailing me wondering what PTSD is after all these years.

The exposure this has been given by the media is wonderful and things will happen, but what took them so long to put the spotlight on this so that the government was forced to address it?