Veterans are being eliminated from PTSD diagnosis

Think trying to change the term of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to "Injury" or just leaving it as PTS is a good thing? Think again. Think that reporters printing how our veterans were already damaged before entering into the military is harmless or explains anything? Think again. It is all part of the undoing of decades worth of real efforts to heal PTSD. Anxiety Disorders like PTSD are lifetime but injuries heal.

The DOD is still doing discharges under Personality Disorders or what some call "Bad Paper" in an effort to avoid having to pay for treatment and compensation. The DOD washes their hands of these men and women, then the VA is off the hook as well since they receive nothing.

The VA has been dealing with an influx of PTSD veterans seeking help including the majority coming from the Vietnam War. They never had enough mental health staff.

All of these results came from billions a year being spent on stupid, doesn't work and never will. They are oblivious and hope we are too.

One more step in the injustice happened right under our nose and that is now cutting off veterans from the care they were promised. Veterans are being eliminated from PTSD diagnosis.

Some Soldiers May Not Get Post-Trauma Help With New Rules
Bloomberg News
By Nicole Ostrow
Aug 13, 2014

Study Results

Researchers in the study surveyed 1,822 U.S. soldiers, including 946 who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The surveys included questions under the old and new criteria.

They found a similar number of soldiers were positive for post-traumatic stress disorder under each criteria. The study found that about 30 percent who were positive under the older criteria weren’t classified as having PTSD under DSM-5. The research also showed that about 20 percent of soldiers were positive for PTSD only under the 2013 criteria.

Hoge said the new diagnostic guidelines, while similar, aren’t an improvement. In his practice, he said, if a patient meets the definition under the old criteria he still will diagnose them as having post-traumatic stress disorder.

Some U.S. soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after service in Iraq and Afghanistan may not be diagnosed with the condition because of new guidelines to assess the illness, a study found.

About 1 in 3 soldiers found to have PTSD under the previous diagnostic standards were missed by the new criteria, according to today’s research in the journal the Lancet Psychiatry.

About 5.2 million adults in the U.S. suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder each year, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Today’s study, one of the first to compare the two sets of diagnostic standards in infantry soldiers, shows that more research is needed to determine how the new rules will affect patient care, said Charles Hoge, the lead study author and a senior scientist at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland.

“For military service members and veterans if they’ve been treated for PTSD or are in treatment for PTSD according to the old criteria, their diagnosis isn’t going to change,” Hoge said in a telephone interview. “New people coming into treatment now, it is possible some of those individuals would’ve gotten a diagnosis of PTSD but they are not receiving that diagnosis now.”
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