In the dying process, PTSD can "rear its ugly head"

This is one more thing not being discussed as much as it should be. When we talk about "secondary stressors" turning mild PTSD into a full blown assault, knowing the end of you life is near, is just about as stressful as you can get.

There are many veterans with mild PTSD and doing ok until they have an accident or face an illness, then everything they have been trying to "get over" boils to their awareness and takes over.

It happens with elderly veterans when they experience losing a spouse or other family members. It also happens when they experience something else traumatic. An elderly WWII veteran had experienced a long list of stressful things in his life. Past the age of 90, his apartment was broken into and after that, he was never the same. Think of living all those years believing you escaped it only to discover that it was just sleeping.

Program to help ensure that no veteran dies alone

Mary Garrigan Journal staff
Posted: Saturday, December 10, 2011

John Fleming wants to make sure his fellow veterans do not die alone.

Fleming is a volunteer with No Veteran Dies Alone, a new program of the Veterans Affairs Black Hills Health Care System. Everyone dies, he says, but no one should do it alone, least of all someone who has served his country.

"Someday, we're all going to be in that same boat," Fleming said. "I just like to be there with these guys."

The new hospice volunteer program is patterned after No One Dies Alone, a national end-of-life concept that was launched at a hospital in Eugene, Ore. Mary Ann Herrboldt, coordinator of the hospice and palliative care program at Fort Meade, said military veterans have some unique end-of-life needs, and other veterans often are best equipped to meet them.

"Veterans do have a unique culture and they do have some unique needs at the end of life," Herrboldt said. Some studies show that as many as 65 percent of veterans experience some form of post-traumatic stress disorder, whether it is ever diagnosed or addressed, she said.

In the dying process, PTSD can "rear its ugly head," sometimes for the first time, said Mary Graham, a nurse practitioner with the hospice program.
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