Baptist working with post-traumatic stress syndrome

This all sounds great, but considering how long we've been hearing about steps taken, history shows they are just stepping back.

Baptist working with post-traumatic stress syndrome

By: RICHARD CRAVER
Winston-Salem Journal
Published: January 11, 2012

Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are collaborating with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on a one-year study to use imaging technology to better understand post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury. Wake Forest Baptist is one of 35 clinical sites across the nation using the equipment.

Researchers compare the images of brain activity from individuals with PTSD and/or mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with the images from individuals without the condition to see whether particular parts of the brain function differently.

"If we can find biomarkers of PTSD, there's hope that we'll be able to improve diagnosis and treatment," said Dwayne Godwin, a neuroscientist at Wake Forest Baptist and co-principal investigator on the project.

Researchers are using a high-tech tool for brain activity imaging called magnetoencephalography (MEG) to conduct neurological tests on military veterans with and without a PTSD diagnosis, and with varying levels of impairment.

Participants perform tasks, similar to games, which engage parts of the brain involved in "executive function" — determining what to do, how to do it, and assessing the relative risk of a situation — while sitting in the scanner.

In a sign of the growing focus on the disorders, first lady Michelle Obama will announce today a new physician-training initiative with 105 U.S. academic medical centers in 42 states, including Wake Forest Baptist. It involves the White House's wounded warriors and veterans programs.
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This is just one report going back to 2007

Army Launches PTSD and TBI training chain
Posted THURSDAY, AUGUST 02, 2007
PTSD, Mild TBI Chain Teaching Begins at Pentagon
Aug 01, 2007
BY J.D. Leipold

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Aug. 1, 2007) - The Army launched its Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and mild Traumatic Brain Injury chain-teaching program at the Pentagon last week by training flag officers and Army senior executive service civilians how to recognize and help distressed Soldiers who may or may not recognize their unseen injuries.

Announced by the Army July 18, the PTSD and mild TBI program is mandatory for all active-duty and reserve-component Soldiers, from the highest to lowest levels in the chain of command. More than one million Soldiers are expected to receive the same training as the senior leaders within 90 days.

Lt. Gen. James L. Campbell, director of the Army Staff, opened the training by telling his peers that the biggest teaching point he wanted to get out to the Army's leaders involved a cultural shift in thought - that leaders shouldn't assume that because Soldiers have no visible injuries that all is well mentally.

This is just one report from 2008

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

PTSD and TBI getting $300 million worth of study
Pentagon spends $300M to study troops' stress, trauma
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
The Pentagon is spending an unprecedented $300 million this summer on research for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, offering hope not only for troops but hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The money — the most spent in one year on military medical research since a $210 million breast cancer study in 1993 — will fund 171 research projects on two of the most prevalent injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Gregory O'Shanick, national medical director for the Brain Injury Association of America, says the funding initiative is "without a doubt … an all-time high" for spending by the government on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). He says civilian victims will benefit directly from the military studies.

By contrast, the National Institutes of Health, the world's largest government sponsor of medical research with an annual budget of $28 billion, spends about $80 million per year on TBI research, according to the NIH.


The Pentagon also will target new ways of delivering therapy to PTSD victims living in remote areas of the USA and reducing the stigma that can keep victims from seeking help, she says.

The military funding will go toward evaluating up to 20 different medications for TBI, she says, and studying ways of regenerating damaged brain cells.

Half of the $300 million in Pentagon funds have been distributed, and all will be paid out by Sept. 30, Kaime says.

Congress has provided an additional $273.8 million this year to study battlefield injuries, some of which will also go toward researching PTSD and TBI.

A study released in April by the RAND Corp. think tank estimates 300,000 current or former combat troops have PTSD or depression, and up to 320,000 may have suffered a brain injury.

"We're in the midst of an exciting era for those who have been damaged," says Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.
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So where did all this money and "research" take us? Right back to where we started.

When I read the headline I hoped to read about how they were finally addressing the spiritual connection to PTSD but my heart sank when I read this is one more of a repeat study. While it is good idea for private doctors to get involved in all of this, since most of the veterans won't go to the VA, they should be looking at new ways to study PTSD and TBI so that we can actually do something to prevent reading more bad reports years too late.