Increases in PTSD Rate Outpace Growth of Services

Increases in PTSD Rate Outpace Growth of Services
By Bob Gordon

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is not new. Ninety years ago it was known as 'shell shock'. Sixty years ago, 'Battle Exhaustion.' The rate that is surging amongst US military personnel today is.
It was only slightly more than thirty years ago, in the wake of the Vietnam War, that the roots of the syndrome, simply trauma and stress as a consequence, began to be understood.
In both the US and Canadian military awareness of it has increased significantly over the last decade. They have been compelled to subsequent to very public evidence.
In Canada General (ret.) Romeo Dallaire, a national hero who had commanded the NATO forces in Rwanda, was found incoherent and intoxicated on a park bench in the National Capital Region.
In the United States it first emerged in relation to escalating domestic violence reports amongst returned veterans of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Similar if less significant trends became apparent in other crime statistics also. The stakes from grown quickly recently.
It was only slightly more than a month ago that that Major Nidal Hassan went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood in Texas. He attacked the Soldier Readiness Processing Center shortly after it opened on Nov. 5, killing 13 and wounding 29. Hassan was a psychiatrist, employed to treat troops with PTSD.
A psychiatrist who also has worked with returnees suffering from PTSD, boldly suggests that incidents of this nature, soldier-on-soldier violence will become increasingly common. Dr. Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist worked for a personnel-recruiting company contracted by the Defense Department at Camp Lejeune, told ipsnews.net,

If not more Fort Hoods, Camp Liberties, soldier fratricide, spousal homicide, we’ll see it individually in suicides, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, family dysfunction. That’s what we’re going to have. Broken, not contributing, not functional, members of society.

read more here

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/283429