"60 Minutes" provided wrong information on Combat PTSD

"60 Minutes" provided wrong information on Combat PTSD
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
January 14, 2014

When we depend on reporters to get it right we assume they understand enough about the topic they are covering to be able to ask the proper questions. Unfortunately, most of the time they lack a basic understanding and have not taken the time to do any research. This happened again with a "60 Minutes" report from November.

I received a link to a video on exposure therapy for combat veterans. It is a powerful report but not because of the reporter. Pelley didn't know the basic questions to ask.

The power comes from these veterans talking about what they have been going through.

CBS 60 Minutes Nov 24, 2013

60 Minutes gets a rare look inside new therapy sessions that are changing the lives of vets who suffer from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Scott Pelley reports.

If Pelley understood anything on "Redeployment" at 30 seconds into the report he would have asked why the military continued to redeploy even after the Army acknowledge redeployments increase the risk of PTSD by 50% for each redeployment in 2006.

"U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.

More than 650,000 soldiers have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 -- including more than 170,000 now in the Army who have served multiple tours -- so the survey's finding of increased risk from repeated exposure to combat has potentially widespread implications for the all-volunteer force. Earlier Army studies have shown that up to 30 percent of troops deployed to Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with the latter accounting for about 10 percent
(Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds, Washington Post By Ann Scott Tyson December 20, 2006)

The claim of one out of five have PTSD is also wrong.

About 30 percent of the men and women who have spent time in war zones experience PTSD. An additional 20 to 25 percent have had partial PTSD at some point in their lives. More than half of all male Vietnam veterans and almost half of all female Vietnam veterans have experienced “clinically serious stress reaction symptoms.” PTSD has also been detected among veterans of other wars. Estimates of PTSD from the Gulf War are as high as 10%. Estimates from the war in Afghanistan are between 6 and 11%. Current estimates of PTSD in military personnel who served in Iraq range from 12% to 20%.
(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs)

New treatments designed for rape victims is not "new" for them either.

The British Journal of Psychiatry published this in 2000.

Exposure therapies can also be combined with cognitive processing interventions (e.g. Resick and Schnicke, 1993), stress inoculation and relaxation techniques, and anxiety management training (Rothbaum and Foa, 1996). Both exposure and cognitive restructuring techniques seem to be effective, and are more effective than relaxation alone (Marks et al, 1998). Another form of exposure therapy employs cognitive reprocessing combined with saccadic eye-movements (eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing, EMDR). Recent studies suggest that this strategy can be effective with combat veterans, and survivors of child abuse and disasters. (Psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder, GWEN ADSHEAD, MRCPsych)

Prolonged exposure, not new and does not work because they are forced to relive all of it over and over again but there is no closure. There is no peace. They are going after the symptoms but not the cause.

Do they really think rape is the same as combat?

There have been reports this "treatment" helps rape survivors and victims of abuse but the two traumas are not the same. Until they treat Combat PTSD differently, we will keep seeing the same results of higher suicides, more homelessness and more suffering when they could be healing.

Three types of trauma were classified: combat- related, rape or assault-related, and a category reflecting a mix of various trauma or another trauma. Across the 59 trials that reported trauma type, 51% involved combat-related trauma only, 19% rape or assault-related trauma only, and 30% a mix of trauma or other trauma. Within each treatment condition (for conditions with three or more trials), mean effect sizes did not significantly differ across trauma types, ps 4 0.1.

Until the cause of PTSD is treated differently, we will keep seeing the same deadly results. Until reporters learn enough to know what questions to ask, we will keep repeating the same mistakes.