Using technology to help battle PTSD

Using technology to help battle PTSD
Boston Globe
By Chelsea Conaboy
GLOBE STAFF
AUGUST 20, 2012

Brian Sullivan, a former Army bomb technician, quit treatment for post-traumatic stress when, he said, doctors began pushing him to take medications he didn’t want. His symptoms, however, did not quit.

Traffic jams made the 42-year-old Foxborough native anxious. Sullivan couldn’t go into a crowded mall. And he was haunted by the memory of a man who approached him while he was working to disable an improvised explosive device during one of two deployments to Afghanistan, he said. Sullivan faced a choice: Shoot, or risk that the man was a suicide bomber. He didn’t fire, but the stress stuck with him.

Last year, Sullivan, who now lives in Virginia, began using a smartphone application developed by the Department of Defense to guide him through breathing exercises when his anxiety began to build. The same agency launched another app earlier this year for veterans to use while in a particular kind of therapy, revisiting difficult memories with a professional. Sullivan became curious, and this summer returned to treatment.

Ten years ago, the resources available to veterans with PTSD who were unwilling or unable, because of geography or other factors, to be treated by a therapist were limited. Researchers are developing technologies to reach people like Sullivan wherever they are, putting tools directly into their hands through programs online and on their smartphones.
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Florida seniors deserved the truth from Paul Ryan but didn't get it

UPDATE

Let me make this perfectly clear. It doesn't matter if they are Republicans or Democrats. If we don't insist they at least tell us the truth, we all lose so it doesn't matter which party "wins" the election. If we don't insist they live up to what most of us actually do want, the media won't do it either. We end up hearing a lot of nonsense and wonder how things got so bad for us. Be an informed voter! Know what candidates are really up to so you can tell the difference between what they say to us and what they actually do after we elect them.

The truth is Obama's budget and Ryan's make cuts to Medicare. Obama cuts costs, not services. The difference comes from what they plan on doing with the savings. Ryan gives the money to companies and Obama gives it to the recipients. Ryan's budget will cost seniors out of their own pockets. In other words, Ryan's speech was short on truth and more like a dog distracting the hens so the wolf would sneak attack.

One more thing Ryan didn't talk about was his budget also calls for $11 billion cuts to the VA and kicks off 1.3 Million Vets.

In Florida, a conversation with Paul Ryan
By Alex Sanz
WPTV NewsChannel 5
Posted August 19, 2012

THE VILLAGES — U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. warned Florida seniors about the perils of Medicare during a campaign appearance here on Saturday, telling an overflow crowd of mostly retired seniors that President Barack Obama had raided the entitlement program to help pay for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"We want to earn your support. We want to earn victory. So that when we win we have the mandates — the moral authority — to stop kicking the can down the road and get this country back on track," he said.

Ryan, who was joined at the campaign appearance by his mother, Betty Douglas, a part-time Lauderdale-By-The-Sea resident and Medicare recipient, drew clear distinctions between how he and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would reform Medicare.

"The first thing we have to remember is President Obama raided $716 billion from the Medicare program to help pay for the Obamacare program," he said during a one-on-one interview with FLDemocracy.

Danny Kanner, a spokesperson for Obama for America, defended the president's position on Medicare after the campaign appearance, and said Ryan and Romney had lied to seniors about their plan for reform because its details were "politically suicidal."

"Seniors would face higher Medicare premiums and prescription drug costs and would be forced to pay out of pocket for preventive care," Kanner said. "(Ryan) didn't say that if he had his way, Medicare would be bankrupt in just four years, or that he would give $150 billion taxpayer dollars back to private insurance companies, which raises costs for everyone. He didn't say that they'd turn Medicare into a voucher system, ending the Medicare guarantee and raising costs by $6,400 a year for seniors. And he certainly didn't say that they'd do it all to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires."
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This is from Bloomberg Business Week back in April, long before Romney decided that Ryan should be able to do what he wanted. After all, Romney fully supported Ryan's budget.

The Audacity of Paul Ryan
By Drew Armstrong and Heidi Przybyla
on April 06, 2011

Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, on Apr. 5 did something politicians seldom do: He stuck to principle. The fiscal conservative and Republican rising star stunned Washington with a 10-year budget blueprint that would shrink government, privatize the Medicare health program for seniors, turn Medicaid into a block grant to the states, and lower to 25 percent the top rate on corporate and individual taxes.

The plan would cut federal spending by $6 trillion over the next decade and slash the deficit to 2 percent of the economy by 2022, down from this year's 9 percent, without raising taxes. Among its weaknesses: overly optimistic assumptions, including that unemployment will be a mere 2.8 percent by 2021. By slashing money for food stamps, education, transportation, and scores of other programs, it's also politically untenable to Democrats. And despite the deep cuts, the House Republican plan would not balance the budget until 2040, largely because of offsetting tax cuts. Still, the scope of Ryan's proposal made Washington's nonstop bickering—and the threat of a government shutdown on Apr. 9 unless a deal is reached over funding levels for the next six months—seem small-bore by comparison.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Ryan's call to convert Medicare, the $500 billion-a-year entitlement program and the biggest reason for mushrooming federal deficits, to a voucher-like system beginning in 2022. A week before Ryan presented his ideas, outside experts involved in the discussions said it was unclear whether the proposal would even cover Medicare. Along with Social Security, Medicare is a crucial part of the social safety net, one that politicians historically have been loath to tamper with, including President Barack Obama in his 2012 budget.

Democrats could hardly contain their glee, believing they'd been handed their talking points for next year's Presidential election. Politically, at least, party leaders see Ryan's proposal as a replay of former President George W. Bush's abortive 2005 plan to create Social Security private accounts, which they used to rally seniors and regain control of Congress in 2006. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) calls Ryan's budget a "thinly veiled attempt to dismantle Medicare" that pulls "the rug out from under seniors."

Republican ambivalence was evident. The party's House leaders, while endorsing Ryan's spending plan generally, largely omitted any references to the Medicare overhaul. The plan is a calculated risk for the GOP. While the proposal could alienate senior citizens in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Iowa, reining in spending may help win over independent voters who gave Obama the edge in 2008. Opinion polls show that independents, who represent 29 percent of the electorate compared with 16 percent for senior citizens, now consider the deficit the most pressing issue facing the nation after jobs. Ryan's budget "is not going to have the repercussions everybody thinks it will," says former Representative Tom Davis (R-Va.), who led the House Republicans' election efforts from 1998 to 2002. "A lot of it is going to be messaging," he says, and "the election is ultimately going to be about swing voters."

Republican leaders may be betting that by embracing the broader anti-spending message of Ryan's plan without dwelling on the details, they can show voters a road map to growth that depends in part on paring the debt and controlling runaway entitlements. "This is not simply a deficit-hawk dynamic," says Republican pollster David Winston, who advises House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). "This is going back to Reagan and how you create jobs."

Ryan, 41, would essentially privatize Medicare by giving those over 65, beginning in the year 2022, about $8,000 to spend on private insurance that would replace the government program. Seniors would shop for subsidized coverage in an "exchange" where the government would approve insurance companies' offerings, says Conor Sweeney, a spokesman for Ryan. The plans would compete for seniors' business, and the subsidies would be based in part on income levels. The plan would also gradually raise the eligibility age to 67 by 2033.
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In other words, companies win and seniors lose. Top all of that off with cuts to the VA and seniors I talk to are screaming because no politician is telling them what is really going on.

Congress has not come up with one plan for putting people back to work but then they turn around and point fingers at everyone else. They want their jobs back, well so do we but while they let us suffer all they could talk about was the deficit. They tell us we shouldn't pass on the debt to our kids but never once mention our kids are suffering right now!

Survivors Network assists crash survivors with PTSD

Group helps flight nurses resume ‘life of purpose’
Health: Survivors Network assists crash survivors with PTSD
ZACH SMITH
Staff writer
Published August 20, 2012

As her emergency medical helicopter began to plummet after losing power while lifting off with a patient from an Olympia hospital, flight nurse Krista Haugen couldn’t help thinking “not again.”

One month earlier, three of her colleagues at Airlift Northwest were killed when their helicopter crashed into Puget Sound near Edmonds.

With their memorial services fresh in her mind, Haugen was left to consider her own mortality as she fell from the sky.

The Oct. 28, 2005, crash from 70 feet above Providence St. Peter Hospital totaled the aircraft, but everyone made it out alive.

For Haugen, however, the effects would linger in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder and would eventually lead to the end of her career as a flight nurse.

“It proved to be pretty overwhelming,” the 44-year-old Gig Harbor resident recalled last week. “It’s not what the aircraft looks like post-accident; it’s what happens in your mind.”

Though PTSD cut short one part of her professional life, it led to the start of another: She helped form the Survivors Network for Air and Surface Medical Transport.

Last month, she was honored with the University of Washington Tacoma’s Distinguished Alumni Award for her work as co-founder and chairwoman of the Survivors Network. She earned a master’s degree in nursing from UWT in 1998.
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Former Marine detained by FBI for Facebook posts?

UPDATE Mom says veteran has hearing today Depending on what you read online, this story is very confusing. I've been reading about this over the weekend and still not sure what to make out of all of this. Some say his posts were "patriotic" but others say they were subversive. I have not read everything he posted so I can't really be objective here.

I hope the whole story comes out soon and we know the rest of it.

Chesterfield man, former Marine, detained over Facebook posts
August 19, 2012
WTVR.com
by Alix Bryan

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) – A Chesterfield County man, and former Marine, was taken away in handcuffs without charges, and is being held for medical evaluation after questionable Facebook posts.

Brandon Raub, 26, was led away from his house in handcuffs around 7:30 p.m. Thursday night, according the video shot and uploaded to YouTube.

That video and information was sent to several CBS 6 News staffers and to the station’s main Facebook page late Friday afternoon.

The video, posted Friday afternoon, has amassed almost 67,000 views on YouTube as of 5:00 p.m. Sunday. The video has enlisted video responses as well. A Facebook group has been started in support of Brandon Raub, and currently has over 3,000 members.

The man was taken away from the scene by Chesterfield Police, but multiple supervisors with the department say that the police have not placed any charges on him and that they were just the transporting agency in this case.
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It really is a shame that this many people pay this much attention to one of them getting into trouble and only a few pay attention to the rest of them when they come home. So many with PTSD, so many committing suicide, so many trying to, even more come home and are forgotten about. Over 2 million served yet the stories of them getting into trouble spread like wildfire across the web.

Motorcycle Crash claims Marine's life in Palm Springs

Crash claims Marine's life in Palm Springs
Aug 20, 2012
Written by
Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Joshua Vielstich shows off his Marine uniform in this undated photo.
Courtesy photo

Palm Springs — A Marine from the Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms was identified Sunday as the man killed over the weekend in a motorcycle crash in Palm Springs.

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Joshua Vielstich, 21, of Draper, Utah, was killed around 8:15 p.m. Saturday when his motorcycle rear-ended a sedan on westbound I-10, about a mile west of North Indian Canyon Drive, according to the Riverside County coroner's office.

He died at the scene.

Vielstich was aboard his beloved 2010 Yamaha R1 with his close friend and Marine buddy Lance Cpl. Sergio Martinez when the crash happened, his father, Craig Vielstich, said.

“They just went to Palm Springs to do some clothes shopping and were on their way back to base,” his father said.
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