More veterans seek treatment for sleep disorders
Fort Hood Herald
Sarah Rafique
Herald staff writer
September 4, 2013
More chronically fatigued active-duty soldiers are getting treatment for sleep disorders at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center’s Sleep Center.
While deployment-related injuries that cause post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury can result in sleep disorders, specialists say a rise in the number of soldiers seeking treatment is attributed to increasing knowledge in a relatively new field of medicine.
Lt. Col. Karin Nicholson, chief of Sleep Services at Darnall, said the hospital’s Sleep Center has seen more than 6,000 patients since it opened its sleep lab in 2012.
More than 600 patients with sleep-related disorders had studies performed on them in the lab, Nicholson said. The full sleep treatment center provides comprehensive sleep evaluations for all sleep disorders, but the two most common disorders the center sees are for obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia.
Obstructive sleep apnea is an upper airway disorder that causes disrupted sleep, Nicholson said. “The soft tissue in the back of the throat is floppy and thickened and will block the airway during sleep.”
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Showing posts with label sleep apnea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep apnea. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
New VA Controversy over Sleep Apnea
Attorney urges Congress to end sleep apnea claims 'abuse'
By Tom Philpott
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 30, 2013
In 2001, the year U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, 983 veterans began to draw disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for sleep apnea, a disorder linked to obesity and characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep that can cause chronic drowsiness.
Last year, 25 times that number of veterans and military retirees (24,791) were added to VA compensation rolls for service-connected sleep apnea, raising the number of vets and retirees drawing apnea payments to 114,103, double the number VA reported just three years earlier.
VA compensation for sleep apnea now exceeds $1.2 billion annually under the most conservative of calculations. Michael T. Webster, a former naval aviator and family law attorney in Shalimar, Fla., calls this boom a scam and an offense to veterans who suffer from “real disabilities.”
Webster seeks to shine a spotlight on what he sees as “widespread abuse” of the VA claims system, mostly by recent retirees. He began with a May 6 letter to his congressman, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
“Virtually every single family law case which I have handled involving military members during the past three years has had the military retiree receiving a VA ‘disability’ based upon sleep apnea,” Webster wrote. “A recently retired colonel told me that military members approaching retirement are actually briefed that if they claim VA disability based on sleep apnea, then they receive an automatic 50 percent disability rating thereby qualifying for ‘concurrent’ payment status.”
read more here
By Tom Philpott
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 30, 2013
In 2001, the year U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, 983 veterans began to draw disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for sleep apnea, a disorder linked to obesity and characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep that can cause chronic drowsiness.
Last year, 25 times that number of veterans and military retirees (24,791) were added to VA compensation rolls for service-connected sleep apnea, raising the number of vets and retirees drawing apnea payments to 114,103, double the number VA reported just three years earlier.
VA compensation for sleep apnea now exceeds $1.2 billion annually under the most conservative of calculations. Michael T. Webster, a former naval aviator and family law attorney in Shalimar, Fla., calls this boom a scam and an offense to veterans who suffer from “real disabilities.”
Webster seeks to shine a spotlight on what he sees as “widespread abuse” of the VA claims system, mostly by recent retirees. He began with a May 6 letter to his congressman, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
“Virtually every single family law case which I have handled involving military members during the past three years has had the military retiree receiving a VA ‘disability’ based upon sleep apnea,” Webster wrote. “A recently retired colonel told me that military members approaching retirement are actually briefed that if they claim VA disability based on sleep apnea, then they receive an automatic 50 percent disability rating thereby qualifying for ‘concurrent’ payment status.”
read more here
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