Mental Ills Top Reason U.S. Troops Now Hospitalized

Reminder of how this happened.

Mental Ills Top Reason U.S. Troops Now Hospitalized
By MARK THOMPSON
May 16, 2012

Four of the top five non-combat medical conditions sending troops to the hospital in 2011 were mental ailments, the Pentagon reports:

“Substance abuse, mood, anxiety, and adjustment disorders accounted for 622 person-years of lost duty due to hospitalization, convalescence, and limited duty dispositions,” the summary of military hospitalizations concluded. “Mental disorders accounted for more hospital bed days than any other morbidity category and two-fifths (40.1%) of all hospital bed days.”

In fact, mental ills account for the most hospitalizations of U.S. active-duty troops for illness and injury, now topping pregnancy-related conditions. “In 2011 mental disorders accounted for more hospitalizations of U.S. service members than any other major category of diagnoses,” a second piece in the Pentagon’s Medical Surveillance Monthly Report noted. “Adjustment reactions (including post-traumatic stress disorder) and episodic mood disorders were associated with more hospitalizations among active component members than any other specific condition…together, these two conditions accounted for 15 percent and 17 percent of all hospitalizations of males and females (excluding pregnancy and delivery-related), respectively.”
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