UA to Study Veterans Reintegration, Obama Aims to Nationalize Montana National Guard PTSD Screening Program, Vets and Intimacy

• As the new GI Bill rolls out, the University of Arizona (with ~400 veterans already on its campus) is gearing up to welcome even more onto its rolls. Their Teaching Center is "developing a transition curriculum for veterans and is training faculty on how to teach them ... [and] has begun to offer veterans classes on resilience and stress management...designed to improve memory, strengthen problem-solving skills and build a social support network." Vets attending the University of Arizona will also be able to take part in their Disability Resource Center's federal Participatory Action Research Project , which will "study veterans reintegration and transition from the military into college." UA is hosting a celebration for veterans and their sponsors on Thursday, Oct. 9, from 4-6 p.m. in the Student Union Memorial Center.
  
  
• This past Wednesday, presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama met with Matt Kuntz, the stepbrother of Montana National Guard and Iraq vet Chris Dana. Dana "took his life in March 2007, less than two years after returning from a tour in Iraq. His family believes he was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder, brought on by his combat experience." Since then, his stepbrother has been among those pushing Montana to implement "more than a dozen changes in its policies in an effort to address PTSD and traumatic brain injuries in returning soldiers. A key initiative in the new plan is to screen all returning soldiers every six months for two years after their tour of duty." Obama has promised that he would "expand Montana's pilot program to assess the mental health of combat vets nationwide."
  
  
• Last week, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune's Gail Rosenblum delivered an important piece on "the private scars of war," intimately introducing us to one family dealing with the most personal after-effects of war. With ~56 percent of today's troops being married, "the U.S. Defense and Veteran's Affairs departments are acknowledging that the physical and emotional scars that troops carry home present a sensitive challenge: sexual intimacy and body-image issues that most couples' therapists are ill-prepared to treat. ...The number of people returning with disabilities, is an 'enormous problem ... an astonishing problem.' ...Combined with the fact that returning vets are usually older and partnered, this is having a devastating effect on relationships."

Wednesday: 'In Their Boots' Webcast Series Airs Story on Veteran Limb Loss, PTSD

Beginning last month, in the days immediately before Independence Day, a riveting series called "In Their Boots" laced up and hit the Internet for the first time. It offers the nation's 99.5% of non-serving civilians an intimate portrait into the struggles and successes of our military families today.

Ever since its first webcast, host Jan Bender (an Iraq vet and Marine himself) and the Brave New Foundation team have been broadcasting a new live and interactive episode every Wednesday night at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. Each week, viewers are invited to listen to the stories of Iraq and Afghanistan service and family members, learn about the groups and organizations that are helping them, and then called to help in some way as well.

This week's episode ("War Scar"), airing on August 27, 2008, introduces us to Jerry Cortinas, "a Green Beret in the U.S. Army Special Forces from 1997 to 2004. The focused and challenging work of a Green Beret was what he knew and what he loved. While operating a rocket propelled grenade in Afghanistan in December 2002, the device malfunctioned and exploded, taking his left forearm and hand. Jerry could no longer do his job. He felt like an outsider in his own hometown."

Jerry's wife, Celina, paints a portrait of a strong (yet still made of flesh and blood and feelings and prides and hurts like the rest of us) Army wife, now faced with "the challenge of helping her husband adapt to civilian life and supporting him as he returned to his role as husband and father" to their two kids.

Lonnie C. Moore, a Program Analyst with the U.S. Army Warrior Transition Office, will also appear. The trailer:



Past episodes appear at the "In Their Boots" website and host Jan Bender's YouTube page. I've included the general series trailer and Episodes 5 and 6, which focused on post-traumatic stress disorder specifically, in extended.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

"In Their Boots" series trailer:



About Episodes 5 and 6: "When [Army soldier] Domonicque Tatum returned from Iraq he expected to be treated like a hero, instead he found himself homeless and suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress." Episode 5 includes interviews with Mary Tatum Chappell, Domonicque's mother, and Floyd 'Shad' Meshad, Founder and President of the National Veterans Foundation, while episode 6 closes with Matt Randle, Institutional Outreach Coordinator of Vets4Vets.

Episode 5:
















Episode 6:












Related Posts

• Australian PTSD Documentary: Casualties of War
  
• Stop-Loss in Theaters Today
  
• PBS and HBO Examine the Sacrifices of War
  
• Chicagoans Discuss 'In the Valley of Elah' and the Plight of Our Returning Troops
  
• 'In the Valley of Elah' Coming September 21
  
• See 'The War Tapes' at IAVA's House Parties Tomorrow
  
• PTSD Documentary Airs Today

Sept. 16-18: VA OIF/OEF Veterans and Families Advisory Committee Set to Meet in Palo Alto, CA

Please pass this on, especially to those in the area who may wish to add their voices, experiences. Those who wish to have five minutes to speak to the committee must pre-register by September 10. Details in extended below:

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) gives notice under Public Law 92–463 (Federal Advisory Committee Act) that the Advisory Committee on OIF/OEF Veterans and Families will conduct a meeting and a site visit in the Palo Alto, California area on September 16–18, 2008. Committee activities will include tours and briefings at various VA facilities.

The purpose of the Committee is to advise the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on the full spectrum of health care, benefits delivery and related family support issues that confront service members during their transition from active duty to veteran status and during their post-service years.

The Committee will focus on the concerns of all men and women with active military service in Operation Iraqi Freedom and/or Operation Enduring Freedom, but will pay particular attention to severely disabled veterans and their families.

The agenda for the September 16–18 meeting will include briefings on recent site visits, discussions on proposed recommendations to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and tours of the VA Medical Center. The Committee will discuss its findings and observations based on previous Committee meetings, site visits, written reports, and personal experiences.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for specific details...


Continuing:

On Tuesday, September 16, from 9 a.m. until 12 noon, the Committee will meet at The Cabana Hotel Palo Alto, 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA. In the afternoon, the Committee will meet at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center, tour the facility and receive briefings from staff.

On Wednesday, September 17, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon, the Committee will meet in closed session. The Committee will be meeting with clinicians and individual patients receiving services at VA’s Menlo Park facility. The session will be closed to protect the privacy of the patients and to minimize possible interference with the delivery of medical services. Closing the meeting is in compliance with 5 U.S.C. Sec 552b(c)(6). In the afternoon, from 2 p.m.–5 p.m., the Committee will meet in open session at The Cabana Hotel Palo Alto, 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA.

On Thursday, September 18, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Committee will meet in open session at The Cabana Hotel Palo Alto, 4290 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA. The meeting will include time reserved for public comments. ******Individuals wishing to make oral statements must pre-register not later than September 10, 2008****** by contacting Syreeta Cherry via e-mail at Syreeta.Cherry@va.gov, and by submitting 1–2 page summaries of their statements for inclusion in the official record of the meeting. Oral statements by the public will be limited to five minutes each and will be received at 3 p.m.–3:30 p.m. on September 17, and 1 p.m.–1:30 p.m. on September 18. Interested individuals may also submit written statements for the Committee’s review to the Advisory Committee on OIF/OEF Veterans and Families (008), Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20420.

Any member of the public seeking additional information should contact Laura O’Shea, Designated Federal Officer, at (202) 461–5765.

Notice: September 2008 Meeting of VA OIF/OEF Veterans and Families Advisory Committee - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Notice: September 2008 Meeting of VA OIF/OEF Veterans and Families Advisory Committee

New York Times Reports on the Unique Characteristics of Combat TBI

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times writes of the special blast category that is combat-related traumatic brain injury (TBI). The entire piece is well worth a read, but I'd like to share a few of the more statistics-heavy grafs:

As many as 300,000, or 20 percent, of combat veterans who regularly worked outside the wire, away from bases, have suffered at least one concussion, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. About half the soldiers get better within hours, days or several months and require little if any medical assistance. But tens of thousands of others have longer-term problems that can include, to varying degrees, persistent memory loss, headaches, mood swings, dizziness, hearing problems and light sensitivity. ...

Little is known medically by doctors or scientists about what happens to a brain as a result of a powerful bomb blast, as opposed to car crashes on a highway, blows to the head on a football field or a bullet wound. These are the first wars in which soldiers, protected by strong armor and rapid medical care, routinely survive explosions at close range and then return to combat.

The bomb blasts, which throw off energy waves — atmospheric overpressures and underpressures — that are absorbed by the body, add a little-studied dimension to the trauma. Scientists are only now beginning to study the extent of the damage.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

That soldiers are sometimes exposed to multiple blasts during a deployment, or can suffer from a vast combination of wounds, including shrapnel, burns, blows to the head, blast waves, lost limbs or internal injuries, can exacerbate brain trauma in ways unseen among civilians. “It is the black box of injuries,” said Dr. Alisa D. Gean, the chief of neuroradiology at San Francisco General Hospital and a traumatic brain injury expert who spent time treating soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg of understanding it. It is one of the most complicated injuries to one of the most complicated parts of the body.”

These mild concussions, which do not necessarily lead to loss of consciousness, are easy to dismiss, simple to misdiagnose and difficult to detect. The injured soldiers can walk and talk. Their heads usually show no obvious signs of trauma. CT scans cannot see the injuries. And the symptoms often mirror those found in post-traumatic stress disorder, making it hard to distinguish between them. In fact, the two ailments often go hand in hand. ...

It was not until 2006, three years into the Iraq war, that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs began to pay close attention to mild traumatic brain injuries. The Pentagon last year opened the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, a clearinghouse for treatment, training, prevention, research and education. This year it is spending a record $300 million on research for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We are more attuned to brain injuries now,” said Lt. Col. Michael Jaffee, the director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. “There has not been as aggressive an effort before.”

That effort begins with screening. As of May, service members who deploy longer than 30 days will undergo neurocognitive testing before leaving, to establish a baseline for changes that may occur later, and again upon returning. At the same time, soldiers in battle who lose consciousness or feel dazed after a blast or other event must be screened by a medical provider and are either approved for duty in the field, told to rest for several days on base or sent to Landstuhl for further evaluation.

Last year, Veterans Affairs started screening all Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who come in for clinical help. So far, 33,000 of 227,015, about 15 percent, have screened positive for mild brain injury since April 2007.

It is unclear how many service members, particularly those who fought earlier in the war, remain unscreened and whose injuries go undiagnosed.

“No doubt that there are significant numbers out there,” said Dr. Barbara Sigford, director of physical medicine and rehabilitation for the Department of Veterans Affairs. ... Post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury are closely tied, although the precise relationship between the two is unknown.

This connection was most recently established in a study in The New England Journal of Medicine in January by Col. Charles W. Hoge, an Army psychiatrist who is leading efforts to identify mental health problems among combat troops. His survey of 2,500 Army infantry soldiers found that more than 40 percent of those who reported loss of consciousness also met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. That was a much higher percentage than those who had suffered other injuries, like Humvee accidents or falls.

Dr. Hoge cautioned, though, that some symptoms — anger, headaches, depression, sleeplessness, mood swings — may stem solely from combat stress, a psychiatric disorder, and not traumatic brain injury. Combat, he emphasized, often goes hand in hand with traumatic experiences, including a near loss of life or the death or injury of others.

For years most troops with mild concussions stayed on the job, immersing themselves in combat again and re-exposing themselves to additional blasts with little or no time to rest and recover. This pattern only heightened the risk of brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, doctors say.

Civilians with brain injury, on the other hand, are given time to recuperate for long periods in a safe environment, which may explain why they respond differently to stress.

Well worth a full reading.


Related Posts

• DoD's $300M PTSD/TBI Research Push, Ft. Hood Presidential Candidate Debate?, Online Sleeplessness Chat
  
• Atlanta's Shepherd Center Picks Up Where TRICARE Leaves Off to Improve TBI Care of OEF/OIF Troops
  
• USA Today: OEF/OIF Combat Traumatic Brain Injury Tops 20,000 Cases
  
• VA: About 6 Percent of OEF/OIF Vets Expected to be Diagnosed with TBI
  
• Combat Traumatic Brain Injury Perplexes Caregivers, Strains VA System
  
• Bob Woodruff Updates on February TBI Story
  
• Hand2Hand Contact Brings Soldiers All the Way Home, Easter Seals Helps Vets with TBI
  
• The American Conservative and IL Governor Take on Traumatic Brain Injury
  
• VA Chief: All Vets Seeking VA Treatment Now Screened for TBI/PTSD
  
• Editorial: Pushing Quick Retirement for PTSD/TBI-injured Troops is Wrong
  
• IL Chief of Vets Affairs Tammy Duckworth Testifies on TBI and PTSD
  
• Bob Woodruff Continues Reporting on TBI, USA Today Reveals Memo Citing DoD Unpreparedness
  
• Traumatic Brain Injury: IAVA's Rieckhoff and VA's Nicholson Square Off
  
• ABC News Tuesday: Bob Woodruff Returns
  
• Cuts to Vet Brain Trauma Funding Planned

Study: Specific Brain Protein Eases Bad Memories

From Health Day News:

The brain mechanism that turns off traumatic feelings associated with bad memories has been identified by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, who said their finding may lead to the development of new drugs to treat panic disorders.

When a person suffers a traumatic experience, environmental cues often become associated with the bad experience. Subsequent exposure to the same cues can cause fear or even panic attacks, according to study author Rainer Reinscheid, an associate professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences.

The UCI team, along with colleagues from the University of Muenster in Germany, found that a protein called neuropeptide S (NPS) eliminates traumatic responses to bad memories by working on a group of neurons inside the amygdala, the brain region where negative memories are stored.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

In experiments with mice exposed to situations that caused bad memories, the researchers found that blocking NPS receptors in the amygdala made traumatic responses to bad memories persist longer. But when the mice were treated with compounds that activated the NPS receptors, traumatic responses vanished sooner.

The findings are published in the July 31 issue of Neuron.

"The exciting part of this study is that we have discovered a completely new process that regulates the adverse responses to bad memories," Reinscheid said in a UCI news release. "These findings can help the development of new drugs to treat conditions in which people are haunted by persistent fears, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or other panic disorders."

Previous research has shown that erasing major negative experiences may require "new learning," such as exposure to the place where the bad experience occurred. This is the first study to identify specific neurons and molecules that eliminate fear memories from the brain.

Interesting to note that it's been found that "mututations in NPSR have been linked to a susceptibility to asthma." Not surprisingly, a strong asthma-PTSD link has been found in a recent study conducted on Vietnam veteran twins.


Related Posts

• Study Finds PTSD Risk Rooted in Stress as Neuroscience Field Bids Farewell to "Patient H.M."
  
• Studies: Veterans and Alcohol, PTSD's Effect on the Heart, Tuberculosis Drug Shows Promise in Reshaping Traumatic Memories
  
• New England OEF/OIF Veterans Needed for PTSD Treatment Studies
  
• Study: Asthma-PTSD Link Found
  
• Study: Specific Brain Chemical Appears to Influence Individual Resiliency and Stress Reaction
  
• Neuroscience Study: Prefrontal Cortex Hyperactivity in Brain Associated with Learned Fear, PTSD
  
• A Sample of the Latest PTSD Study Results
  
• Study: Higher Memory, Attention Lapses for OIF Vets
  
• Emory University Investigates New Iraq Vet PTSD Treatment
  
• Scientists Racing to Ease Painful PTSD Memories
  
• PTSD Clinical Study: A Call for Therapists, Veterans, and Police

Reiki for Veterans? Military and VA Testing, Already Using Ancient Touch Therapy

The Department of Veterans Affairs uses it in their Hepatitis C treatment program. Fort Bliss' Warrior Resilience program -- the same one Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey believes should be replicated throughout the military -- uses it as one tool to help soldiers strengthen and recover following combat.

Military OneSource's Health Library says it can increase wellness and "treat diseases of all types."

And it's the reason given by New Zealand's champ cyclist Hayden Roulston for bouncing back from a serious heart condition to claim both Olympic silver and bronze medals this past week in Beijing.

What is it? Reiki [pronounced "Ray-Key"] energy healing.

While I've heard of it in the past (in fact, I have a sister who is a Reiki Master and had used the touch therapy in her past massage therapy practice), it seems to be bubbling up to the mainstream surface more and more these days. That the military and VA are incorporating it, is another positive sign that mountains can be moved even in mammoth bureaucracies -- as long as you believe it can be so (and add a little action into the mix to help it along).

A couple of weeks ago, I received another nudge to report a bit more on these developments in my email bag:

Hi,

My name is Gretchen Freeman.

I've been reading your blog for some time and love the information I get there. I have a loved one that just did a 15 month tour in Iraq and it has changed my life.

I have a passion to work with warriors and veterans that have been affected by PTSD, TBI and other ramifications of the war, and their families and loved ones.

My work is alternative alternative healing in the form of Reiki, etc. I've worked with several people in person and do a lot of remote (distance) work with people whom are either referred to me by doctors or find me themselves. I don't do my healing in place of traditional medicine and psychological treatment, but currently with it. And it works wonders.

In light of the military and VA's embrace of Reiki and other energy treatments like Qigong and distance healing, I asked Gretchen if she would educate me a bit on this sometimes hard-to-understand (or even believe) form of complementary therapy making its way into the military ranks.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Just for today, do not anger.
Just for today, do not worry.
Be humble.
Be honest in your work.
Be compassionate to yourself and others.

-- Mikao Usui (1865-1926), founder of Reiki

Reiki is a biofield therapy said to reduce tension and stress while promoting self-awareness and healing. It is considered complementary health care, i.e., valuable as an addition to, not substitute for, traditional health care. Here's what the VA has to say about Reiki on their National Hepatitis C Program page:

Energy healing
Energy healing is based on the concept that the human body is surrounded by various kinds of energy fields--electrical, magnetic, and subtle. In this healing-based tradition, practitioners are consciously aware of their client's imbalances of energy, and claim they can alter it to improve the overall sense of well being for their clients. The concept that unseen energy flows through and around all living things is a belief that comes from many cultures since ancient times.

Conventional medicine concerns itself with health on a very physical and cellular level. Viewing the body as having other dimensions requires a shift in thought. The concept of subtle energy fields continues to have slow acceptance into our traditional, Western medical approach. ...

Reiki
Reiki is [a] type of energy healing. The Reiki practitioner's hands are either lightly touching the patient's body or are held slightly over it. Energy is thought to flow through areas most in need of healing. In Reiki, the energy is thought to come from the Universe, and the practitioner helps to transfer this positive, healing energy to the recipient. The concept is bizarre to some, but people who receive Reiki often have positive experiences.

Practitioners claim Reiki can aid in healing at a physical, emotional and mental level. Most recipients of Reiki report a peaceful sense of relaxation, and some people have reported reduction in pain, anxiety, fear and anger. There is no scientific evidence to confirm the effectiveness of Reiki.

The federal National Institutes of Health is funding research on energy healing therapies.

Not only is the NIH funding research into Reiki, so is the U.S. Army, doling out $4 million to research more holistic ("whole picture") mind-body-spirit treatment methods including spiritual ministry, transcendental meditation, yoga and bioenergy therapies.

While the VA says there is "no scientific evidence to confirm the effectiveness of Reiki," it's not for lack of trying [a partial list]. But, overall, the reasons for the difficulty in measuring the therapy's efficacy stem from a variety of present-day research hurdles. One is the difficulty of testing Reiki's treatment dosage in double-blind clinical trials and determining the results that might follow within today's current scientific framework.

From “Reiki – Review of a Biofield Therapy History, Theory, Practice, and Research” [pdf] in the March/April 2003 issue of Alternative Therapies:

Biofield therapies, including Reiki, are generally accepted as low-risk interventions. The widespread use of these therapies, coupled with anecdotal evidence of efficacy, indicate a need for further study of this important category of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Because of their foundation in subtle energies that as yet lie beyond technology’s ability to consistently measure, biofield therapies present a special research challenge. ...

"An Integrative Review of Reiki Touch Therapy Research" by Anne Vitale MSN, APRN, BC, appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of Holistic Nursing Practice; it reviews some of the latest clinical Reiki studies and further explains the difficulty in testing its results in a clinical setting:

Reiki is an ancient energetic healing practice believed to have originated thousands of years ago in the Tibetan Sutras, and then lost, to be renewed in the 1800s by Dr Mikao Usui, a Japanese monk.3 In recent years, professional nursing is a leading discipline in the exploration of the benefits of Reiki.

Nurses and others report clinical observations that the use and practice of Reiki has relaxation effects, stress management benefits, lessens pain, and promotes inner healing, however, with little empirical evidence on just how it works.21,25–31 Within the last 10 years, the use of Reiki has increased among nurses and others, such as physicians, and rehabilitation therapists who practice this modality in patient care in hospitals, hospice care settings, emergency departments, psychiatric settings, nursing homes, operating rooms, family practice, and many other settings.21,32 ...

Confusion in what constitutes credible CAM explorations and the lack of empirically based investigations is a common criticism challenging Reiki use within our Western, allopathic model of healthcare. The field of energy research does not readily lend itself to traditional scientific analysis or strictly linear research methods because paradoxical findings are common. ...

Entwined in this debate is the issue of whether the randomized controlled trial design considered the “criterion standard” in medical research is the optimal methodology for capturing the efficacy of energy work. ... [W]hen planning randomized controlled trial investigations to evaluate subtle energy work such as Reiki, it is difficult to know whether sham Reiki used in placebo controlled trials is truly inert or just another confounding research variable.44 According to Shiflett et al 37 and Lee,52 benign touch may have treatment effects beyond placebo, which was discussed in early Reiki research recommendations presented by Wirth and Barrett,48 Dressin and Singg,45 and others.

Vitale touches on the second large research hurdle: Whatever Reiki's benefits may or may not be, how can one know if the results are due solely to the energy work itself? What if the "placebo effect" is what's really operational here? Gregg Braden discusses the potent power of this effect in his book "The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits:"

In May 2004, a group of scientists at Italy's University of Turin Medical School conducted an unprecedented study investigating the power of belief to heal in a medical situation. It began with administering drugs that mimic dopamine and relieve patients' symptoms [the patients were suffering from Parkinson's Disease].

It's important to note here that the drugs have a short life span in the body and their effects last only about 60 minutes. As they wear off, the symptoms return. Twenty-four hours later, the patients underwent a medical procedure where they believed that they would receive a substance to restore their brain chemistry to normal levels. In reality, however, they were given simple saline solution that should have had no effect on their condition.

Following the procedure, electronic scans of the patient' brains showed something that's nothing short of a miracle. Their brain cells had responded to the procedure as if they'd been given the drug that originally eased their symptoms. Commenting on the remarkable nature of the study, the team's leader, Fabrizio Benedetti, stated, "It's the first time we've seen it [the effect] at the single neuron level."

The University of Turin findings supported studies that had been conducted earlier by a team at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In that investigation, it was reported that placebos could actually raise the brain levels of dopamine in the patients who receive them. Linking his studies to the earlier ones, Benedetti speculated that "the changes we ourselves observed are also influenced by release of dopamine." [pages 43-44]

Reiki practitioners, however, are clear about one thing: Their clients don't necessarily have to believe that the treatment will work (although having any negativity towards it may "block" its healing properties); therefore, it's not merely the placebo effect here that's doing the healing. Patients simply need to be open to the therapy; the energy will do the rest, they say.

"People can think themselves sick, and they can think themselves well," my Reiki Master sister says. "The mind can get in the way of or assist with our healing."

Another element to ponder: Today's research methods don't allow us to scientifically prove the existence of God, for example, yet many Americans wholeheartedly believe in the presence of such a being or force in their lives. Perhaps our present limited logic- or mind-based methods for testing such things might also fall short in testing Reiki's spiritual energy realm as well.

But the studies continue (see NIH-supported clinical trials, which are currently recruiting patients to test the efficacy of Reiki, including distant Reiki). A few examples from The Reiki Center:

• Autonomic Nervous-System-Changes During Reiki Treatment: A Preliminary Study. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Volume 10, Number 6. This study revealed a significant reduction in diastolic blood pressure and heart rate in the Reiki group that didn’t appear in the placebo group or the control group, thus tending to indicate that Reiki created an important effect that was not caused by suggestion.
  
  
• Both hands-on and distant Reiki treatments resulted in statistically-significant decrease in the symptoms of psychological depression and self-perceived stress, and the treatments had the long-term effect [Shore, A.G., "Long-term effects of energetic healing on symptoms of psychological depression and selfperceived stress", Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine].
  
  
• The nature of psychological effects arising during a Reiki session were studied, and anxiety was shown to reduce after treatments [Wardell, D.W., Engebretson, J., "Biological correlates of Reiki touch healing", J. Advanced Nursing].
  
  
• Certain physiological changes were associated with receiving Reiki treatments, including decrease in systolic blood pressure, increase in salivary IgA levels and decrease in salivary cortisol after treatments, increase in skin temperature and decrease in electromyographic activity during treatments [Engebretson, J., Wardell, D.W., "Experience of a Reiki session", Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine].

But let's jump back a bit to the beginning and lay a foundation to our exploration into Reiki energy healing itself. What's it all about? First, a look at the human energy field from Dr. Caroline Myss' book, "Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power Healing:"

Everything that is alive pulsates with energy and all of this energy contains information. While it is not surprising that practitioners of alternative or complementary medicine accept this concept, even some quantum physicists acknowledge the existence of an electromagnetic field generated by the body's biological processes. Scientists accept that the human body generates electricity because living tissue generates energy. ...

Practitioners of energy medicine believe that the human energy field contains and reflects each individual's energy. It surrounds us and carries with us the emotional energy created by our internal and external experiences -- both positive and negative. This emotional force influences the physical tissue within our bodies. In this way your biography -- that is, the experiences that make up your life -- becomes your biology. [pages 33-34]

Recent research backs this connection up.

For example, veterans suffering with PTSD (a psychological/internal condition) are at a higher risk for heart disease (a physical/external condition). [Even stressed military kids with a deployed parent have been found to suffer higher blood pressure and heart rates.] And veterans with PTSD also have more autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and psoriasis, and a strong link between PTSD and asthma and migraines has also been found.

One more powerful example of this internal energy/external outcome link: Those diagnosed with PTSD have a physically detectable, smaller hippocampus -- the region of the brain tasked with storing and retrieving memories -- than people without PTSD.

Another portion from Myss' book:

Positive and negative experiences register a memory in the cell tissue as well as in the energy field. As neurobioligst Dr. Candace Pert has proven, neuropeptides -- the chemicals triggered by emotions -- are thoughts converted into matter. Our emotions reside physically in our bodies and interact with our cells and tissues. ...

As Dr. Pert said on Bill Moyers' "Healing and the Mind, ..."Your mind is in every cell of your body." Moyers: "...You're saying that my emotions are stored in my body?" Pert: "Absolutely. You didn't realize that? ...There are phenomena that we can't explain without going into energy." ...

[E]ach area of the body transmits energy on a specific, detailed frequency, and when we are healthy, all are "in tune." ...This way of interpreting the body's energy is sometimes called "vibrational medicine." It resembles the most ancient medical practices and beliefs, from Chinese medicine to indigenous shamanic practices to virtually every folk or alternative therapy. [pages 35-36]

Let's look at another recent study having to do with the neuropeptides Dr. Pert mentioned above.

Just last year, researchers studying soldiers going through Ft. Bragg's survival training program were able to "identify a specific brain chemical that appears to influence how well you’ll perform under stress and how emotionally resilient you’ll be after a critical incident. The more you have of this powerful ingredient...the better off you’ll likely be when your life is on the line."

What's the ingredient? Neuropeptide Y (NPY).

We can see, then, that stress and the internal thinking that drives it can do a lot of good -- or it can do a lot of damage not only to our mind, but our body as well. Those coping with PTSD and TBI have an understandable amount of negative energy coursing through their systems due to their past and present trials and experiences. Enter Reiki as one element to combat that gradual erosion of internal energy and external health.

Gretchen Freeman is a Massachusetts Master Reiki healer who has turned her focus to helping returning veterans and their families. She believes that trauma is the main source of physical and mental disease and distress in the world today. It, especially the kind sustained in combat or even by just being in the war zone, "cuts through to the very core," she said.

"In my belief it wounds the soul."

Our bodies have many levels, four of which are the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels. Injuries sustained to the mental, emotional and spiritual levels can result in symptoms in all the other levels of the body, Gretchen said.

"For instance, a spiritual wound can result in mental, emotional and physical symptoms," she said. "On the other side of the coin, a physical injury can result in mental, emotional and spiritual ramifications."

"Reiki healing encompasses it all – mind, body and spirit," she said.

According to her, Reiki provides deep relaxation, heals and releases mental and emotional stress, relieves aches and pains, quickens the healing process, works on the causal level of disease, reduces discomfort from surgery, helps reduce depression, and rebalances the system, creating clear mindedness and greater mental and physical balance.

"Reiki is non-invasive and can be used either hands on, hands off or remotely from a distance," she said. When asked what drew her to becoming a Reiki healer, Gretchen said having a treatment herself made her a believer.

"The funny thing is," she said, "at that time, I thought Reiki was a form of massage!" After having a treatment done, she said it turned out to be nothing like what she expected. In fact, even better than she expected.

"I felt calm and light after the treatment," she said. "The cloud around me at the time just disappeared. I felt more balanced and comfortable with myself. That was just after one treatment."

Gretchen explained during our email interview that trauma is the main cause of energy blockages throughout the body, mind and spirit. While traditional medicine and psychiatric care work effectively, "sometimes an alternative and gentle approach, such as Reiki or other energy modality, is needed, too," she said.

But combat veterans aren't the only ones feeling the stress and strain of years of steady and solid war.

"The deployment of a loved one touches everyone," she said. "Spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, close friends and children can all develop their own PTSD, just by virtue of having their loved one in the war," she said.

Gretchen, who has a BA in Psychology and is a member of a group called A Journey Home, a healing place for veterans and warriors dealing with PTSD and other ailments, speaks with personal knowledge and experience on this point. A year and a half ago, her boyfriend was deployed to Iraq.

"That brought the war into my reality and straight into my face," she said. It also fueled her desire to do something for other veterans returning home. She read and learned as much as she could about the issues concerning returning veterans, about the war and it’s mental health ramifications. During that research, one incident stirred her desire to help even further.

"I heard the story of the young man who went to the VA for assistance, was put on a waiting list and subsequently committed suicide," she said. "That story horrified me straight down to my toes and deep into my soul."

Attempts to contact VA officials about the use of energy healing didn’t get anywhere, she said. She also wrote to several veterans’ representatives in each town in her area, but received no response.

"Short of taking out an ad in the newspaper, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to do," she said, "I developed my website (www.healingforsoldiers.com) last April and launched it in May."

Presently, Gretchen works "remotely," otherwise known as distance healing, where the recipient on the other end sits or lays in a meditative or restful state. They could also be out shopping, watching television, etc. while she sends Reiki (or Luminclear) energy their way.

"They will still receive the healing," she said.

While this seems to be the stuff of science fiction (how can she send healing energy to someone else "out there" somewhere?), quantum physics research is proving that such miraculous possibilities do exist in our world on a particle level.

So, why not on a human level, too?

Again, from Braden's "The Spontaneous Healing of Belief:"

In recent years, scientists have developed the technology that has made it possible to document the strange and sometimes miraculous behavior of the quantum energy that forms the essence of the universe and our bodies. For example:

• Quantum energy can exist in two very different forms: as visible particles or invisible waves. The energy is still there either way, just making itself known in different forms.
  
  
• A quantum particle can be in one place only, two places at once, or even many places simultaneously. The interesting thing, however, is that no matter how far apart these locations appear to be physically, the particle acts as if it's still connected.
  
  
• Quantum particles can communicate with themselves at different points in time. They're not limited by the concepts of the past, present, and future. To a quantum particle, then is now and there is here.

These things are important because we're made of the same quantum particles that can behave miraculously when given the right conditions.

This is all cutting-edge stuff, only now being revealed through scientific experiments over the past decade. So, if you haven't heard any of this before, don't worry...you're not alone. It is a bit of a mind-bender, and I certainly don't have it all down pat, either (then again, neither do the scientists).

Thank you, Gretchen, for sharing yourself and your work and knowledge with me and the others who read this blog. I hope that, moving forward, more is learned about the usefulness of Reiki and other alternative therapies in treating pain -- be it emotional, physical, or spiritual -- for veterans and the rest of us, too.

In closing, I thought the following YouTube video might be a good overall introduction to Reiki:



[UPDATE Aug 24, 2008]: ePluribus Media Journal has run a version of this post in their online magazine. Meanwhile, the Daily Kos version has some interesting reader comments.

[UPDATE Aug 25, 2008]: The Hartford Courant runs a related article, "U.S. Looks At New Age, Holistic Therapies For Veterans," by Ann Marie Somma today. It has an interview with a kundalini yoga practitioner -- a form of yoga that I've recently added to my weekly exercise sessions and would highly recommend your trying. (Maya Fiennes' Kundalini Yoga DVD, by one of the most sought-after instructors of this form of yoga, is top notch).

From the Hartford Courant:

Lola Scarborough, owner of Yoga Lola Studio in League City, Texas, applied for a $300,000 research grant to document the benefits of Kundalini yoga on veterans.

Kundalini yoga, Scarborough said, awakens an untapped reserve within each of us — envisioned as a sleeping serpent in the base of the spine, whose power can help veterans deal with anger, flashbacks, depression and anxiety, symptoms often associated with PTSD.

"There is a big problem with people coming back from war. They are able to survive physical wounds through body armor, but they are blowing up their brains," Scarborough said.

In Connecticut, yoga therapy isn't offered at the VA hospital in West Haven or clinic in Newington, but veterans can take classes outside the VA network at their own expense, said Pamela Redmond, a VA spokesperson.

Many yoga studios, understanding that PTSD is chronic, are offering free yoga classes to veterans. Recently, the New York Sports Clubs in Queens organized a free weekly veterans yoga class to complement the services provided by a nearby veteran center.

My recent post on yoga for veterans has more.


Related Posts

• Warrior Mind-Body-Spirit: Free OEF/OIF Returning Veteran Yoga Classes Springing Up Nationwide
  
• Strengthening Mind-Body-Spirit: Novel PTSD Treatment Method Study Seeks OEF/OIF Veterans
  
• Army Chief: Fort Bliss' Warrior Resilience Program Should be Replicated
  
• New Age Treatments for a New Age of Warfare: Army Seeking Alternative, Holistic Therapy Research Proposals
  
• Deep Breathing Techniques for Stress Release
  
• Fort Bliss PTSD Recovery Center Aims to Return Troops Quickly to Battle
  
• Therapies for Healing Trauma
  
• Helpful Stress Reduction Information
  
• Online Meditation and Stress Reduction Video

Of "No Show" Federal Workers, VA Employees Top MIA List

From ABC World News:



I've been looking for a related article on this, and have only found this general snippet from USNews' Political Bulletin:

ABC World News said a new report from Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn (R) has found that a "growing number" of Federal workers are not showing up for their jobs, a situation which Coburn "says costs $7 billion to $10 billion in lost productivity every year." How do these employees "get away with it? Coburn blames layers of bureaucracy and inefficiencies, which have allowed the numbers to grow." But the "union which represents many federal employees blames the Bush Administration."

While not mentioned above, the ABC report reveals that the Dept. of Veterans Affairs has the most truant workers of all federal agencies. While most individual VA employees do incredibly trying and important work for our military families, that their peers rate highest for "no shows" (simply not coming in for days, weeks and even months at at time while still being paid) is yet another indication of the mammoth failure of our federal systems.

Disturbing news as a taxpayer and also as someone who believes the VA needs to do better than it currently is.

We deserve better from our government.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for related posts...


 Related Posts

• Controversial VA Email Accepted into Evidence in Veterans' Rights Class Action Lawsuit Case
  
• VA Continues to Fall Behind in Claims Processing Time
  
• CNN: Waging War on the VA
  
• Independently-Licensed VA Health Care Providers Reviewed Following Illinois Inquiry
  
• Editorial: Overhaul VA Without Delay
  
• DoD, GAO Reports Show Lack of Resources, Personnel Slowing Necessary Veterans Health Care Changes
  
• VA's Inspector General Audit on Service Wait Times Rebukes Congressional Testimony
  
• Family Sues VA for Iraq Veteran Son's 2004 Suicide
  
• IG Report: Veterans Administration Lax in Implementing Database Security Measures
  
• Montana Iraq Vet Suicide Reflects VA, Military System Failure
  
• 1-in-3 Veterans' Counselors Reporting Burnout
  
• Tennessean Readers Comment on Underfunded VA
  
• VA Not Spending PTSD Funds Properly

Portland Tribune Highlights Local and National Veterans' 'Suicide Epidemic'

The Portland Tribune's Peter Korn writes a tight piece on veterans and suicide, weaving together both local and national statistics:

“More often than not, the veterans I have spoken to all say they know somebody who has attempted suicide,” says Portland State University professor and suicide researcher Mark Kaplan.

The numbers are stark, and staggering:

• In 2005, the last year for which complete Oregon data has been compiled, 19 Oregon soldiers died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. That same year, 153 Oregon veterans of all ages, serving in various wars, committed suicide.

• The rate of suicide among Oregon men who are veterans is more than double that of Oregon men in general — 46 suicides out of every 100,000 compared to 22 out of 100,000 — according to the Oregon Department of Human Services Center for Health Statistics.

• Nearly one in three Oregon suicides, according to Kaplan, is a veteran.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

One surprising trend: Kaplan and other experts are noticing a rising trend of suicide among aging Vietnam veterans, possibly influenced by what they’ve seen in recent years about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, the age group in the state health statistics showing the greatest differential between veteran and nonveteran suicides, by far, are those between ages 18 and 24. Veterans between 35 and 44 have the next highest suicide rate relative to nonveterans of the same age. Twenty-one Oregon veterans under the age of 45 committed suicide in 2005.

Kaplan says even those numbers might be underreported as much as 25 percent.

Nationally, reports of high suicide rates among veterans began to gain attention in April, when a series of e-mails from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs officials came to light during a class-action lawsuit brought by a veterans group in San Francisco.

The e-mails say that 12,000 veterans under VA treatment attempt suicide each year, and that more than 6,000 veterans succeed in killing themselves each year. There are about 25 million veterans.

“There is clearly a suicide epidemic,” says Paul Sullivan, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Veterans For Common Sense, which brought the lawsuit. Sullivan says the VA’s own data on calls made to its suicide hot line might be the best indicator of the depth of the problem.

According to the VA, in July there were 250 calls a day to the suicide hot line. And veterans have made more than 22,000 calls since the hot line started in July 2007. Portland VA officials say 864 calls to the suicide hot line have come from Oregon veterans in the last year.

But Sullivan says the epidemic might not be most virulent among veterans from the two current wars, but from Vietnam-era veterans. He says many Vietnam veterans he has spoken to tell him that seeing images of the war in Iraq on television and in newspapers has triggered memories and trauma.

Highly recommend your reading the rest.


Related Posts

• Controversial VA Email Accepted into Evidence in Veterans' Rights Class Action Lawsuit Case
  
• Groundbreaking CBS News Investigation Into Veteran Suicide 'Epidemic'
  
• Iraq War: Deadly Trigger for Previous Wars' Veterans
  
• Former Sen. Max Cleland Treated for PTSD
  
• Iraq War's Effects on Former Veterans Goes Nationwide
  
• Today's War Can Be Difficult for Prior Veterans

IAVA's New GI Bill Website, Labor Dept.'s New Vet Employee Website, VA Suicide Hotline

• Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America relaunches an updated version of their veterans' educational benefits website, GIBill2008.org that includes an online calculator and details on the new program. Partially going into effect earlier this month with a 20 percent benefit increase, the full package of improvements rolls out in August 2009. IAVA was among the groups who pushed Washington hard to give today's returning veterans the same college benefit -- full tuition, book allowance and monthly living stipend -- as their WWII counterparts received.
  
  
• Meanwhile, the Labor Department is rolling out its new website, America's Heroes at Work, to help employees "better understand the mental health issues veterans may face" and, hopefully, help to reduce the stigma of hiring those returning with PTSD, TBI and other injuries. "One message of the initiative is that many of the veterans' symptoms are either manageable or will go away with time. Another message is that small changes, such as scheduled rest breaks for a veteran with a traumatic brain injury, can make a big difference." A toll-free number, 800-526-7234, has also been set up for employee questions.
  
  
• In operation for a year now, the new VA suicide prevention hotline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255), recently reported that it's received more than 55,000 calls, about 22,000 saying they were veterans. CBS News reports that the majority of the most recent calls "have come from the mid to south central part of the country[:]" Texas, Tennessee, Illinois and Florida. "Calls to the VA’s hotline more than doubled this calendar year going from a total of about 21,000 in January to more than 55,000 by the end of June, averaging about 250 calls a day."

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for related links...


Related Posts

• Back to the Future: Senate Joins House in Restoring WWII-Era Veterans' GI Bill Benefits
  
• Expansion of GI Bill Set to Ease Burden of Returning Troops
  
• Sen. Jim Webb Leads Charge to Improve GI Bill
  
• GI Bill Delays Hamper Education Payments
  
• Hiring More Vets, Keeping Them in Their Homes, Offering Group Therapy, East Texas Resources
  
• VA Report: 23% of Young Vets Unemployed, Up from 10% in 2000
  
• Advice for OEF/OIF Vet Employers and Co-Workers
  
• Insurance Information Institute Study: Employers May Not Be Ready for the Wounded
  
• VA Patient Suicide Attempts Rise Dramatically
  
• VA Reports Nearly 300 Estimated OEF/OIF Veteran Suicides

Fort Sill's Warrior Transition Unit Problems, Progressive Disabled VA Care, Military Parents Sue AIG, Toledo Vet Center Expands PTSD Program

• Ace USA Today veterans' issue reporter Greg Zoroya writes an unsettling piece on 20 soldiers who told of "mold in the barracks, delays in processing medical cases and morale in the Warrior Transition Unit (WTU) for wounded and injured outpatients at Fort Sill." Ironically, these WTU's were created to address these very same issues of moldy housing units and substandard aftercare at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. But Fort Sill appears to rely on a heavy-handed approach with their ailing soldiers, some heavily medicated and variably disabled due to their injuries, issuing Article 15 punishments "like they were candy."
  
  
• File this one under "NOT the way to support our military families:" The Charleston Gazette's Andrew Clevenger reports on a lawsuit filed by the parents of an "Iraq war veteran who died in his sleep in February while recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder" against AIG, a private insurance company. The suit revolves around AIG's refusal to pay out on the $50,000 life insurance policy their son, a Marine combat engineer who disarmed IEDs and patrolled the Iraq-Syria border while deployed overseas, purchased after returning home. Wishing to ease any further stress and financial burden on his parents in the event of his own death, he bought the policy after his brother -- serving with the Army in Afghanistan -- died in an RPG attack.
  
  
• A well-written profile piece by Gabe Nelson for the Toledo Blade -- filled with both heart and a lot of local and national data -- introduces us to Maj. Dorian LeBeau, a clinical therapist working at the Toledo Vet Center as they begin an expanded PTSD care program. LeBeau, an "Army mortuary affairs officer based at Camp Doha, Kuwait" recovering remains of fallen U.S. soldiers during past Iraq and Afghanistan deployments, says, "My main focus since I’ve returned home is to help other individuals like myself to ensure they’re getting the things they need, from someone who understands what they’re going through." Maj. LeBeau: You rock, sir.
  
  
• 'This American Veteran' is a half-hour monthly video news magazine produced by the Department of Veterans Affairs aiming to educate its clients on the many benefits they're entitled to. This month, learn about a few new resources for disabled veterans the VA has provided, including a "home telehealth program, where over 30,000 veterans are able to check into their medical center daily without ever leaving home." Some are also jetting off "to the beaches of Malibu, where veterans experience sun and surf in a uniquely California form of physical and mental therapy -- on a surfboard." ABC World News recently reported on this program:

Study: 80% of Air Force Women Suffering with Gulf War Syndrome-Like Maladies

From Science Daily:

More than 80 percent of a sample of Air Force women deployed in Iraq and other areas around the world report suffering from persistent fatigue, fever, hair loss and difficulty concentrating, according to a University of Michigan study.

The pattern of health problems reported by 1,114 women surveyed in 2006 and 2007 is similar to many symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, the controversial condition reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"It is possible that some unknown environmental factor is the cause of current health problems and of Gulf War Syndrome," said U-M researcher Penny Pierce.

"But it is also possible that these symptoms result from the stress of military deployment, especially prolonged and multiple deployments."

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

"Women now comprise approximately 15 percent of our nation's armed forces," Pierce said. "And since the Persian Gulf War, combat roles for women have expanded substantially. This study is an attempt to understand the impact of deployment and war-related stressors on the health of military women."

The Air Force women surveyed by telephone and through mailed questionnaires were drawn from a stratified, random sample and deployed at least once since March 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Half of those sampled served in the theater of war and half served elsewhere; half had children under the age of 18 still living at home; half were active duty, a quarter in the Reserves and another quarter in the National Guard. The median age of participants was 36 years, and 45 percent were married. About 36 percent had a dependent child at the time they were sent overseas. About 70 percent were white.

Asked if they experienced any of a list of symptoms persistently in the past year, 89 percent of those surveyed reported suffering from fatigue, 85 percent from difficulty concentrating, 83 percent from fever, and 83 percent from hair loss. In addition, 35 percent reported suffering from muscle pain and stiffness, 29 percent from irritability, 26 percent from loss of energy and 25 percent from headaches.

In general, Pierce and Lewandowski found that those in the reserve and guard reported more physical symptoms than active duty personnel. Enlisted women reported more health problems than officers did.

In most cases, women serving in the theater of war were more likely to report physical health problems than were than those serving elsewhere. But in many cases, the differences were small, suggesting to Pierce that deployment-related stressors such as family separation and disruption of social support systems may play a critical role in developing stress-related physical problems.

In an earlier analysis of data from the study, presented at last year's American Psychological Association conference, Pierce and Lewandowski-Romps found that about 20 percent of the women surveyed reported at least one major symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTDS).

"Deployment itself is a major stressor," she said. "The whole person is deployed---body, mind, and spirit. We don't know the precise biological mechanism, but it is generally accepted now---perhaps more so than it was in the early 1990s when Gulf War Syndrome was first reported---that persistent levels of heightened stress take a major toll on physical health.

"By identifying problems early, I hope our findings will guide policy-makers and health care professions to design interventions to support service members and their families."

The study is part of an on-going research program on women veterans funded by the TriService Nursing Research Program.

For more information:

Women Veterans Project website: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/afwomen/home

U-M Institute for Social Research: http://www.isr.umich.edu

 Related Posts

• Study: 1-in-5 Combat-Deployed Air Force Women Show Symptoms of PTSD
  
• Female Vets 4 X, Male Vets 2 X as Likely to Become Homeless Vs. Non-Vets
  
• Study: 'Prolonged Exposure' Therapy Superior Treatment for Female PTSD
  
• One-Third of OEF/OIF Women Vets Suffer Psychological Injury
  
• A Look at the VA's Women Veterans Health Program
  
• Psychological Bulletin from APA: Females Have Higher Rates of PTSD
  
• Women in Combat: Females and PTSD
  
• Combat, Women, and PTSD: Details and News on Upcoming VA Retreat

A Fine Helping of Art For, By And About Veterans Begins Sunday

An Iraq infantryman named Zero offers a compelling introduction to this post, which brings together a number of art programs and exhibits taking place on television and in galleries and statehouses and theaters across the country this summer and fall.

The one common denominator: the fusion of expression through art and the experience of war. Here, Zero explains how he uses his artwork to express himself and what he knows of combat:



Click on 'Article Link' below tags for much more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

First, from the Ohio statehouse, a must-see exhibit:

Where :
Statehouse
Columbus OH, 43215
Representatives' Hall

What : The Lima Company Memorial: A Remembrance of Spirit & Choice will be on view at the Ohio Statehouse in Representatives' Hall through Veterans Day weekend, 2008 during normal Statehouse hours. Hours include weekdays, 7 a.m. - 6 p.m. and weekends 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

The exhibition will be free and open to the public.

The exhibition was created in memory of 22 fallen Marines and a Navy Corpsman from the Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division who lost their lives while serving in Iraq in 2005.

The Ohio-based Marine Reserve unit, once known as "Lucky Lima," was one of the hardest hit single units in Operation Iraqi Freedom, suffering deaths of 22 Marines and their Navy Corpsman. Created by Columbus artist Anita Miller, the memorial contains life-sized paintings of each of the 23 fallen heroes. Names and statistics of each of the fallen men, an ever-living candle, boots and space for visitors to leave mementos are part of this moving memorial installation.

Miller has worked during the last two years to create and paint the memorial. She has created eight painted panels set in an octagon that depict portraits of each of the 23 men who lost their lives in the war.

The Ohio Statehouse serves as a solemn place to honor these American service members through November 11, 2008 in Representatives' Hall.

An excellent local news segment in which the artist and family members of Lima Company introduce you to the project and their special boys:



Next, this from Broadcast & Cable:

Ovation TV will examine the ways in which war has been depicted in art with The Art of War, which kicks off a week of war-related programming on the arts network beginning Aug. 17.

The programming schedule will feature classic films and documentaries, including Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket,as well as the U.S. premiere of War Oratorio, a musical meditation on the effects of war in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Uganda. OvationTV.com will also feature the work of award-winning photojournalist Zoriah, who was embedded with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Coming on the eve of the national political conventions where the topic of war will be front and center, The Art of War will explore the myriad of ways artists have attempted to deal with the subject,” said Kris Slava, senior vice president of programming and production for Ovation TV.

“It is one of the great pragmatic functions of art -- when weighty decisions have to be made, human beings turn to art to distill insight, understanding and even solace out of chaos and suffering,” he added. “These programming selections are certainly powerful examples of that function.”

From Metromix Baltimore:

Playwright Michael Weller will have a busy September — two plays at two different off-Broadway theaters. First up is "Beast," opening Sept. 15 at New York Theatre Workshop. It's the tale of two wounded Iraq War vets (played by Logan Marshall-Green and Corey Stoll) who make their way across America to Texas and a visit with their Commander in chief, portrayed by Larry Pine. Preview performances begin Aug. 29 for this production, which is directed by Jo Bonney.

From Marketwatch:

Art as Public Discourse

America's Road Home will also leverage art as a form of public discourse as it hosts the "Veteran Vehicle Project," a new work of art by internationally renowned projection artist, Krzysztof Wodiczko. The 45-minute multi-media presentation will run at dusk from August 22-29 and will feature audio and images of interviews with homeless veterans and their families.

This powerful discourse on the issues faced by our veteran population will be projected from a Humvee onto the wall of the Aromor building, an historic hotel at 13th and Grant in Denver that Mercy Housing Colorado is transforming into a permanent supportive home for more than 65 formerly homeless individuals. Through funding from ARH, the Schaden Family Fund, the City and County of Denver and others, Mercy Housing will also be able to help residents connect with the services they need to stabilize their lives and stay off the streets.

From Artist Trust:

The Seattle PI says "Tikka Sears' 'work created under compulsion' is a powerful exploration" of the struggles" of people forced to create in order to survive. Connection and alienation drive this bold visually stunning theater piece first presented at the 2007 NW New Works Festival. This multimedia theater production features innovative movement and projection. Audience members are encouraged to contribute stories by visiting: www.memorywartheaterproject.com

Work created under compulsion is inspired by characters and individuals throughout history who have been forced to create/work in order to stay alive. This piece juxtaposes and interlaces the stories of border crossers, Scheherazade, a Holocaust survivor and a veteran of the Iraq War. Research was drawn from newspaper articles and NPR interview with Dina Babbitt, Internet blogs of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, video interviews with community members and the Persian tales from One Thousand and One Nights.

Dates:

September 1st as part of Bumbershoot Arts Festival at 6:30PM FREE with Bumbershoot entrance

September 3-6 at 8:00PM, September 6th at 2:00PM:
$15-$30 Pay-What-You-Can
$10 for Seniors, Students and TPS Members
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/39482

Creation of this work was made possible in part by an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship and Gap Grant, City Artist Funding from the Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and 4Culture special projects funding. The Memory War Theater Project is a project of the Shunpike.

Location:

Center House Theatre
(at the Seattle Center)
305 Harrison Street
Seattle, WA 98109

www.memorywarth

From artnet:

PORTRAITS OF WOMEN VETS IN RICHMOND

Over 180,000 women have served in the U.S. military in combat zones, and the Visual Arts Center of Richmond in Richmond, Va. (founded in 1963 by Elisabeth Scott Bocock as the Hand Workshop) is launching the 2007-08 art season with an exhibition focusing on women combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. "When Janey Comes Marching Home: Women Combat Veterans," Sept. 12-Dec. 14, 2008, a collaboration between author-filmmaker Laura Browder and photojournalist Sascha Pflaeging, presents large-format color photographs and accompanying oral histories of more than 40 female soldiers. According to the curators, the exhibition "will unsettle our fixed ideas about Americans at war and add dimension to the often flawed or fragmentary pop culture depictions of women in the military." For more information, see www.visarts.org

The following is not an event, per se, but rather a call for artwork from veterans listed in the Brooklyn Eagle:

BAY RIDGE — The Brooklyn Campus of the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System is calling for “Veteran-Centric-Art” for a National Poster Project on the Afghanistan/Iraq War.

The Veteran Art National Poster Project deadline for submissions of veteran art for the 13”x19” National Afghanistan/Iraq War Poster is Sept. 15. Art may be realistic or abstract and all media are accepted. To arrange to drop off your artwork and for more information, please call Creative Arts Therapy Coordinator Melanie Zarabi. Ms. Zarabi can be reached at (718) 836-6600, ext. 1255. The winning artwork will be made into a poster for Veterans Day 2008.

The contest was initiated by the Department of Veterans Affairs Compensated Work Therapy Program (CWTP) and sponsored by the National Office of Psychosocial Rehabilitation of the Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA), and all veterans and veteran groups are encouraged to participate. The mission of the CWTP is to provide a realistic and meaningful vocational opportunity to veterans; encouraging successful reintegration into the community at the veterans’ highest functional level.

From Broadway World:

Culture Project (Allan Buchman, Artistic Director) announced today two new shows that will comprise the 2008 fall season – it will next present the New York Premiere of the award-winning play In Conflict (beginning September 18), a compelling portrait of Iraq War veterans speaking out on duty, loss and the fight to stay alive.

In Conflict

Based on Yvonne Latty’s ground-breaking book
Adapted and Directed by Douglas C. Wager
Previews begin September 18, 2008
Opening Night September 24, 2008

In Conflict is a compelling portrait of Iraq War veterans speaking out on duty, loss and the fight to stay alive amid one of the most controversial conflicts in modern American history. Based on Yvonne Latty’s acclaimed 2006 book of the same name, the stage version of In Conflict, adapted and directed by three-time Helen Hayes Award-winner Douglas C. Wager, will begin performances on September 18, 2008 at the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street). Opening night is set for Wednesday, September 24.

In Conflict captures the unheard voices and unpredictable experiences of 17 Iraq War veterans whose lives have been changed forever. Featuring men and women from all branches and ranks, Republican and Democrat, straight and gay, immigrants and natives, hailing from all parts of the country, these remarkable veterans represent America and its complexity. In Conflict answers the question so often asked of soldiers when they return home: What happened? Their honest answers and unbelievable accounts will change the way we think about war.

From Lioness: The Film:

Lioness tells the story of a group of female Army support soldiers who became the first women in American history to be sent into direct ground combat in violation of official policy. Without sufficient training but with a commitment to serve as needed, these young women ended up fighting in some of the bloodiest counterinsurgency battles of the Iraq war. Lioness makes public, for the first time, this hidden history.

Told through intimate accounts, journal excerpts, archival footage, as well as interviews with military commanders, the film follows five Lioness women who served together for a year in Iraq. With captivating detail, this probing documentary reveals the unexpected consequences that began by using these Army women to defuse tensions with local civilians, but resulted in their fighting alongside Marine combat units in the streets of Ramadi. Together the women's candid narratives describing their experiences in Iraq and scenes from their lives back home form a portrait of the emotional and psychological effects of war from a female point of view.

Screenings:

Friday, September 19, 2008
Center for Media, Culture, and History, New York University
Screening and discussion with filmmakers
4-6 pm, Cantor Film Center, 36 East 8th Street
http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/media/

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Visual Arts Center of Richmond Screening
7 pm Visual Arts Center of Richmond
Richmond, VA
http://visarts.org

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Panel discussion: When Janey comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans
Visual Arts Center of Richmond
Richmond, VA
http://visarts.org/exhibitions/upcoming

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Independent Lens' Community Cinema screenings
Schedule and locations to be posted soon.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/getinvolved/cinema/

Thursday, October 16, 2008
New York Women in Film and Television
http://www.nywift.org

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Panel on Women and War
Academy Women Fifth Annual Leadership Symposium
Washington, DC

Thursday, November 13, 2008
Broadcast on Independent Lens, PBS - 9 pm
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/

Monday, April 13, 2009
Images Cinema
Williamstown, MA
http://www.imagescinema.org/

From Atlanta Performs:

Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter
Company - Synchronicity Performance Group
Date - 10/02/2008
Start Time - 8:00 pm
End Time - 10:00 pm
Price - $15.00 - $23.00

Description
How do you face your children when you can’t face down your demons? On her first day back from a tour of duty in Iraq, Jenny Sutter isn’t ready to go home. She escapes to Slab City, a concrete garden of wandering souls. The strange assortment of residents, including a pleasure-addicted maven with a gambling problem and an unlikely preacher might just be the key to bring Jenny’s spirit back from the war and lead the way home.

Location
Synchronicity at 7 Stages Back Stage Theatre
1105 Euclid Avenue
Atlanta - Little 5 Points, Grant Park, East Atlanta, GA, 30307
Box Office - 404-484-8636

From Huffington Post:

Paul Chan often contemplates the apocalypse. Chan's most recent exhibition 7 Lights unfolds as enigmatic encounters with light and darkness with general references to 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the terrorist violence around the world. With stunning simplicity, shadows play in animated landscapes while bodies tragically fall through the air and silhouettes of guns float skyward among cell phones and birds. Best known for his politically charged projects that toe and often cross the line between art and activism, Chan recently staged a production of Samuel Beckett's iconic play, Waiting for Godot in the 9th Ward of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has even created a free map of New York which was produced during the Republican National Convention for protestors, pinpointing convention events, delegates' hotels and public toilets. His works are pointed and relevant without being excessively angry or aggressive, allowing us to draw the connections between contemporary art and current events. Tune in to listen to Paul Chan and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist chat about Chan's work here. Chan's exhibition on view at Greene Naftali, New York opens October 23.

In a frame free from distractions, photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' subjects stare directly into his camera and make eye contact with the viewer. Using a large film format, his technique has been poignantly honest when capturing porn stars with their clothes on an off as well as political and celebrity figures. In his recent series, "Injured Soldiers," of wounded Iraq war veterans, Greenfield-Sanders confronts the less publicized and devastating aspects of war with the same honest power and compassion. Six Army veterans and four Marines were photographed in conjunction with the documentary, "Alive Day Memories" that premiered last September on HBO Dawn Halfaker, a West Point graduate, holds the prosthesis for her missing right arm; decorated Marine John Jones stands dressed in uniform from the waist up, while exposing his two robotic legs. The series "Injured Soldiers" has been on view at museums and galleries internationally, most recently in Tokyo where one visitor commented, "We need to see these photos. We don't think about war or talk about it usually." Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' The Black List Project, featuring 22 portraits of African Americans is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through October 26.

If you know of any others, please share them in comments.


Related Posts

• Raising Awareness Through Music: "PTSD Spells MIA" by Wes and Victoria
  
• PTSD Sculpture Therapy: One Woman's Clay Journal
  
• Poem: PTSD -- 1st Person
  
• OEF/OIF Vets Use Art to Share Their Experiences
  
• Harmless: Chicago's Timeline Theatre Company Presents Compelling Post-War Play
  
• At the Movies: Film and PTSD
  
• Poetry in Motion: Using Art to Process PTSD
  
• Poetry Therapy for the Veteran Soul

Studies: Veterans and Alcohol, PTSD's Effect on the Heart, Tuberculosis Drug Shows Promise in Reshaping Traumatic Memories

• Arriving today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the article Alcohol Use and Alcohol-Related Problems Before and After Military Combat Deployment delivers the results of "one of the first major studies to emerge from the Pentagon's landmark 'Millennium' study, launched in 2001." According to Carla K. Johnson of AP, "researchers analyzed data from nearly 80,000 military personnel, including more than 11,000 who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan," and found that 26 percent (>600 of 2,400) of troops who reported no binge drinking prior to the study "developed the problem after deployment and combat exposure." Guard and Reserve troops had a 60 percent higher rate of developing "[n]ew patterns of regular heavy drinking and alcohol problems."
  
  
• In the July/August 2008 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, A Prospective Study of PTSD and Early-Age Heart Disease Mortality Among Vietnam Veterans reports that having PTSD "significantly raises the risk of premature death from heart disease...[being] roughly twice as likely to die from heart disease during follow up as veterans without PTSD." Reuters' Megan Rauscher quotes the study's chief researcher, Dr. Joseph Boscarino, saying that the work "confirms that PTSD is a major cause of heart disease." He said the effect PTSD has on the body is the same as "smoking two to three packs of cigarettes per day for more than 20 years."
  
  
• A five-year Emory University study sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health is looking at an antibiotic, "a 50-year-old tuberculosis drug called D-cycloserine, or DCS," as a possible treatment for anxiety and PTSD. Eric Hagerman of Popular Science reports that "veterans with PTSD take the drug or a placebo, don a virtual-reality helmet, and re-create their worst nightmares...[while a] therapist guides them safely through the traumatic memory." The drug, which has shown promise in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias like fear of heights, works on the brain's amygdala by allowing the traumatic memory to be "reshaped" or lessened. Clinical trials are ongoing.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for related links...


Related Posts

• Can Local Anesthesia Knock Out Anxiety of PTSD?
  
• JAMA: Mental Health Longitudinal Assessment of Returning Iraq War Veterans Study
  
• Texas A&M Researchers Set to Study Biological Components of PTSD
  
• Editorial Chimes in on Psychological Kevlar Act and Virtual Reality Therapy
  
• DoD's Millenium Cohort Study Tracking Health of 108,000+ Service Members
  
• Study: Specific Brain Chemical Appears to Influence Individual Resiliency and Stress Reaction
  
• Study: 'Prolonged Exposure' Therapy Superior Treatment for Female PTSD
  
• Study: Military Kids Have Higher Blood Pressure, Heart Rates, and Stress Levels
  
• Neuroscience Study: Prefrontal Cortex Hyperactivity in Brain Associated with Learned Fear, PTSD
  
• A Sample of the Latest PTSD Study Results [includes results of another heart disease/PTSD study]
  
• Emory University Investigates New Iraq Vet PTSD Treatment
  
• APA Meeting: Worse Physical Health Follows Combat PTSD
  
• Scientists Racing to Ease Painful PTSD Memories

A Thank You to Those Who Care for Our Nation's Wounded

Though bowed,
You are not broken.
Though stretched,
You're strong, my friend.
You are resilient like a willow --
You'll find your spring again.
Though your branches
Now weigh heavy,
Your roots go deep and true.
This is just a change of season --
God has better plans for you.

-- Sharon Hudnell

Back in May, as has been the case since 1984 on each Friday before Mother's Day, we celebrated what's known as Military Spouse Appreciation Day. Spouse Buzz, a place where military spouses can connect with one another, hosted guest blogger Lieutenant General William Caldwell, Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Ft. Leavenworth.

This is what he wrote at the time:

We’ve watched you nurse your wounded warriors back to health in military hospitals. You’re there, still full of hope, when Troopers with head injuries don’t recognize their family. You encourage them. You decorate their rooms. You read their favorite books to them. You are the first to notice when they can squeeze your hand again for the first time.

The spouse on the home front pays the bills, fixes the car, gets the kids to soccer practice, helps with the homework and building the kids pinewood derby car... you are our true heroes. You have unique experiences that only other military spouses can comprehend. ...

All military spouses know why their loved ones serve, and they share in their hardship and sacrifice and ask for little in return. It is humbling to those of us who wear the uniform to know that our best friends, our spouses, are serving along side us. Those of us in uniform serve because we love our Nation; our spouses do it for love of us. Our service men and women could not continue in this profession without your help, and for that we are eternally grateful…and so is our Nation.

I bring this to our attention today because of the following video (h/t to VAWatchdog.org for preserving these segments for us) of a CBS Evening News report, which aired last Thursday:



This clip is a true tribute to all of our military spouses, those who day-in-and-day-out take care of their returning warriors -- beaten and bruised in battle -- in the most graceful, resilient manner they know how. What heroes these military family members are.

Let's keep them close in our minds and even closer still in our hearts every day. They are serving our nation...quietly, humbly and with the greatest gift around: their love.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

From CBS News:

Nancy Kules couldn't have imagined getting help from her husband two and a half years ago. An IED struck Ryan's humvee in Iraq, blowing away his right arm and left leg. He lay in a coma on life support.

"I'm 23 years old, we're married for a couple of years, all of a sudden now I'm what, I don't have a husband anymore, I've got a dependent? You know, that's a really scary thought," Nancy says.

And so she began a journey into the unknown, like the caregivers for the nearly 33,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Wallace.

"You realize that there's those people that never come past opening their eyes, gesturing they're thirsty," she says. "I was scared. I was really scared."

"You hear Nancy talk about how scary that was for her, what's that like when you hear that?" Wallace asks Nancy's husband Ryan. "You know, what if the roles were reversed and it was Nancy who was hurt and I don't know if I could do it," Ryan says.

Nancy and Ryan came to a camp sponsored by the Adaptive Sports Foundation -- a place where the veteran and the caregiver get the support they need.

"If you can meet another spouse that can just say, 'Yeah, he's done that,' or, 'Yeah, he's like that sometimes,' or 'Don't you hate it when …' then it makes you feel less, you know, you're not alone," Nancy says. ...

"You're the one that gets yelled at first. You're the one that gets snapped at when you go over a bump too hard in a wheelchair," she says. "I didn't put a bump in the sidewalk. You can't make life smooth, obviously."

Still, Nancy knows it could be worse.

"There's people that'll never ever meet their kids," she says. "I just can't imagine what their wives and their parents and loved ones are going through."

To honor those less fortunate, they named their new daughter Jillian Deme -- her initials are a tribute to the two men who died in Ryan's humvee.

"What better way to celebrate than a beautiful little girl," Nancy says. "She represents life and happiness and great things."

Read the rest.


Related Posts

• Family Strains Worsen as Wars Drag On, Deployments Add Up
  
• A&E 'Intervention' Program Features Iraq Veteran with PTSD
  
• Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody: Soldiers, Families 'Stretched and Stressed' to Limit
  
• House Veterans Affairs Health Subcommittee Explores How Best to Support Military Families
  
• Helpful Guides for Returning Troops and Military Families
  
• 'Army Family Covenant' Signed into Action
  
• Army Chief Agrees Troops Need More 'Dwell Time' at Home After Deployment
  
• Proactive Reintegration Suggestions for Military Family Members
  
• Activities and Programming for Military Kids and Their Parents
  
• Increased Deployment Tempo Strains Military Family Ties
  
• Lifelines Online PTSD Video Series for Military Families

Stateside Predator Operators and Combat Stress, IL Gov. Moves to Reduce Vets' Property Taxes, Female Vets and Sexual Trauma, Free Journal Articles

• AP's Scott Lindlaw reports that even troops shielded and far from the Iraqi combat zone are having similar psychological reactions as those deployed overseas. "The Air National Guardsmen who operate Predator drones over Iraq via remote control, launching missile attacks from the safety of Southern California, 7,000 miles away...[are citing stressors from] the exhaustion that comes with the shift work of this 24-7 assignment; the classified nature of the job that demands silence at the breakfast table; and the images transmitted via video."
  
  
• Illinois has been on the cutting edge when it comes to finding local solutions to problems caused by inadequate federal veterans' benefits systems. Even before the new GI Bill became law, Illinois picked up the college tuition tab for its vets. It offers a PTSD screening program and 24-hour hotline for returning veterans via its Warrior Assistance Program. And now, Gov. Rod Blagojevich is set to use his amendatory veto to exempt thousands of wounded Illinois veterans from having to pay property taxes. The House and Senate must approve it before it can become law next January.
  
  
• Healing Combat Trauma blog has some interesting insights and strong suggestions on the problems some women are facing in the military in "Twice Betrayed: Women Veterans and Military Sexual Trauma."
  
  
• Want to learn more about PTSD? Sage Publications is offering free access to its large collection of psychology, counseling, and psychiatry journals now through the end of September, 2008.

Simon's Cat Offers Up Furry Anti-Stress Medicine

I haven't posted anything funny and light in a while, so no better time than now to remedy that oversight. Dr Deb's Psychological Perspectives blog (worthy of checking out for its bright offerings) recently shared this Simon's Cat YouTube clip in her post "Laughter is SUCH Good Medicine." Anyone who has a cat, will find these irresistibly funny. I know I did...

Two more Simon's Cat installments in extended.

Let Me In!


Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

TV Dinner


Cat-man-do



Related Posts

• A George Carlin Classic on Combat PTSD
  
• Mark Fiore: The Surge at Home
  
• Doonesbury: B.D.'s Counseling Continues

Can Local Anesthesia Knock Out Anxiety of PTSD?

William Hageman of the Chicago Tribune reports today on an area doctor using a novel approach to treating the anxiety that surfaces in many PTSD sufferers.

Estimates of how many veterans suffer from PTSD range as high as 50 percent. What's not disputed is that most of them are undiagnosed. Dr. Eugene Lipov refers to the growing problem as "the reverse surge."

Lipov is the president and medical director of Advanced Pain Centers, with offices in Hoffman Estates and Westmont. He believes he has found a way to combat the feelings that come with PTSD through a seemingly simple injection that calms the section of the brain that becomes overactive in PTSD patients.

The treatment is called a stellate ganglion block [more info: general | clinical], an injection of the local anesthetic bupivacaine around a group of nerves in the neck.

"The medication we're using is the same numbing medication that has been used for decades for pregnant women during labor and delivery," explains Dr. Jay Joshi, director of research at Advanced Pain Centers. But using it against PTSD is a new idea. Lipov made another connection between the medication and the body's reaction.

"I found that one part of the brain that works on hot flashes and PTSD is the same ... the insular cortex," he explains. The injection, he says, "reboots" the insular cortex. "It resets the nerve system the way God built it," he says.

View the procedure, and learn of the experience of the first Iraq veteran to receive this new treatment:



Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

[Dr. Deborah Little, assistant professor of neurology and director of magnetic resonance research at the University of Illinois at Chicago], who is designing the clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of the procedure, points out that the injection is not a treatment for PTSD; "it's a treatment for anxiety that comes out of PTSD."

So far, five patients have been treated. The first was the victim of an armed robbery, and a paper on the case will be published in the September issue of the Annals of Clinical Psychiatry.

The procedure itself takes only 5 or 10 minutes. One of its biggest benefits it that it works immediately, unlike antidepressant drugs and psychotherapy, the most commonly used treatments, which may not take effect for months.

Brown's first injection was about two months ago.

"It had an immediate effect," he says. "I noticed I wasn't tense, I wasn't looking around. I was just calm."

"His sleeping was definitely better [after the first treatment]," agrees his wife, Amanda, whom he married two days before he left for Iraq. "He didn't have as many nightmares."

The treatments do need to be repeated, though Lipov and Little say the time between them appears to get longer.

Lipov, Joshi and Little are continuing to research this new procedure, and actively seeking funding for a larger clinical study. There's more information at their Stop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder website.


Related Posts

• House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee Hears Testimony on PTSD Treatment and Research
  
• PTSD Researchers Ecstatic About MDMA?
  
• Study: Specific Brain Chemical Appears to Influence Individual Resiliency and Stress Reaction
  
• Study: 1-in-5 Iraq Vets Diagnosed with Migraines, Suffer Higher Rates of Depression and PTSD
  
• Study: Drug May Ease Combat PTSD Nightmare Incidence
  
• Neuroscience Study: Prefrontal Cortex Hyperactivity in Brain Associated with Learned Fear, PTSD

Swift Warrior, Healing Heart: Hand2Hand Contact's Alison Lighthall Presents at the 11th Annual Force Health Protection Conference

This is a long, long delayed post on an extraordinary individual, doing heartfelt and much-needed work to bring the public's attention to combat PTSD. My greatest appreciation for her and her work, and apologies this took so long to get online.

Beginning tomorrow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, attendees of the 11th Annual Force Health Protection Conference (free conference to military and civilian alike) will be in for a great treat. Alison Lighthall, founder of Hand2Hand Contact, presents "10 Things You Can Do If You Only Have 10 Minutes: Healing Interventions That Can Be Done With Veterans Anytime, Anywhere."

In December, Lighthall wrote in an Army Times op-ed piece:

It has become abundantly clear this year that our military medical system is not equipped to provide all the physical and psychological care that returning veterans need. Our country needs to step up and help combat veterans and their families in tangible ways.

And we, as military personnel, need to accept their help.

I know it’s hard for warriors to accept help from anyone, much less a civilian or civilian group with little understanding of our world. But for this nation to remain strong, we must do everything we can to recover from wounds visible and invisible.

Like so much of America, many civilian health care professionals are disconnected from the impact the war is having on our combat vets. The bridge between the veteran and the civilian medical provider is in serious disrepair. Two things have to happen for that bridge to be rebuilt.

First, civilians need to come closer to our world. They need to read stories written by veterans who have been there and watch documentaries about the war. Civilians need to learn more about the heart and soul of a warrior. They need to stop asking, “What was the hardest part about being over there?” and start asking, “What’s the hardest part about being home?”

They need to start thinking about the reality of a seriously wounded vet and the impact those wounds have on each person in that veteran’s life. But most of all, they need to find ways to reach out within their communities to embrace their returning service members and welcome them back.

Military personnel must be willing to meet those civilians halfway. We have to be willing to accept their help and teach them about our experiences.

Bridge builders like Lighthall will help to make that happen.

Get to know the special spirit that is Alison, who says "as long as there is love, there is hope," in a recent PBS Chicago Sunday Evening Club segment called "30 Good Minutes." She explains what propels her work, something called Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world” in Judaism. The video clip of her thoughful interview is available online.

I've included an original profile piece on this force of light and change written last year in extended, and I'd highly recommend visiting Hand2Hand Contact's "Stuff You Should Know" page for a wealth of informational resources.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more much more...

Swift Warrior, Healing Heart

Everything about former Army Nurse Corps Captain Alison Lighthall points to speed. Her unfussy brown hair is cropped short, framing an inviting face that doesn’t have time or need to stop for an extensive makeup pit-stop on the way out the door.

Sitting down for an interview, in fact, she doesn’t actually sit for the first 10 minutes. Instead, she’s busy cracking open her laptop and walking and talking her audience-of-one excitedly through the PowerPoint presentation she likely delivers with equal gusto to area high school students she visits with.

“I’ve always been exuberant,” says Lighthall. “I travel at a very high speed.”

But speed for this self-described pushing-50, street-savvy lady, doesn’t mean leaving everyone in her dust. It’s quite the opposite. Lighthall is the embodiment of the Warrior Ethos, the guiding principle of which is leaving no man or woman behind. It propels every ounce of her work and life.

“If every single person had that as their ethos, their personal ethos, it would erase half the problems on the planet,” she says.

Proving that actions speak louder than words in her world, well into her 40’s and with her nation conducting combat operations on two fronts, Lighthall joined the Army Reserves. Not wanting to watch another Vietnam happen, she threw herself into the fight.

“I felt very mission-driven having grown up during the Vietnam era,” says the 25-year registered nurse. “I really couldn’t with a good conscience sit back and do nothing.” Baxter engineer and best friend Larry Backes has seen this Lighthall trait in action.

“Alison has always been one that when she gets an idea, she runs with it,” he says. “And it always has a really interesting and incredible outcome.” Nothing bears this out more than the counseling work his friend performed for troops heading into and returning from the combat zone, and the homecoming work that she’s wrapped her energy around since being honorably-discharged from the Army in May 2007.

Now a behavioral clinical team leader at Deerfield’s Focused Health Solutions during the day, Lighthall moonlights as co-founder of a Chicago-area nonprofit called Hand2Hand Contact. The active woman who recharges her energy reserves by hiking and biking in the woods and spending time with her kids has talked with the Easter Seals about developing returning veteran reintegration camps across the country.

According to Backes, Lighthall has been talking about setting up such camps for years. He is excited but not surprised to hear of her recent successes, the latest being her return from Washington, D.C., where she pitched her ideas to the Chief Psychiatry Consultant to the Army's Surgeon General.

“She’s not intimidated by anyone or anything,” Backes says.

All of this activity would make anyone of lesser oomph sputter and wilt, but Lighthall is clearly empowered. Yet there’s another side to this confident and accomplished female warrior, and refreshingly she doesn’t hide it or deride it a bit.

“When you travel at a high speed,” Lighthall says, “you’re going to have a lot of crashes.” And those crashes, or traumas, have led her to a more intense understanding of people and things, an essential component of being a good psychiatric nurse. But, before arriving at her present strength and fitness, she’s had a lot of ground to cover.

“I know I look put together and I look competent,” laughs Lighthall. “But I have to tell you the sheer number of hours I’ve spent crying and writhing in pain, you wouldn’t believe.”

Backes confirms this, saying, “She does have a very tough veneer where people don’t realize how hurt she actually was by an event.” The friend Lighthall says knows her better than anyone else, adds, “Through [her processing] effort, it becomes energy.”

Saying she has a very high radar screen about the way people behave, Lighthall points to her painful experiences, like growing up as a child in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood where she was frequently accosted by gangs of kids and regularly beaten up, as curiously strengthening events.

“It taught me how to be extremely, unusually aware of human behavior at a very early age,” she says. And, she notes, after leaving Hyde Park, she was never assaulted again. On the way up from being knocked down, Lighthall cultivated a real empathy for people. She calls this being “deeply affiliated” or other-centered.

“Meaning transforms trauma into it being tolerable,” says Lighthall. “If you can bring meaning to your trauma, the healing is three-quarters of the way done.” And so, early trauma metamorphosed into a lifetime of reaching out to others to ease their pain, Lighthall creating something positive in her life and in other people’s lives as well.

Her rabbi is credited with helping the divorced mother of two through the worst of her spiritual and soul crises, touches upon this exuberant spirit that infuses Lighthall.

“Alison is an extraordinarily dynamic and passionate person whose empathy motivates her to fix a part of the world that she sees as broken,” her rabbi says. “[Her] work and her life’s mission has become the urgency of healing spirits that are broken.”

Backes adds, “Where this driving force is coming from is spiritual in nature.” Friends for two decades running, he sees Lighthall as a very spiritual – not overly religious, per se, though she is that as well – individual. “She is very, very savvy when it comes to how the world works,” he says.

As Lighthall talks about her time with the Army and her plans for helping her former battle buddies return home, you witness that she is in her element as a soldier. The Warrior Ethos lives on in her. Losing the chance to continue serving in the field due to heat-related health complications has dealt yet another blow to a life marked by far too many.

But, again, just as she did in Hyde Park, Lighthall picks herself up and dives in yet another new direction. Wherever she winds up, helping others will be part of her journey.

“If I had pixie dust and a magic wand,” Lighthall says, “I would be heading up, creating and overseeing programming for [reintegration] camps where I was in those camps often, traveling from camp-to-camp overseeing the care, the psycho-education, the nourishment and healing of military personnel and their families.”

“That to me is nirvana,” says the fierce warrior with the kindhearted spirit.



Related Posts

• Hand2Hand Contact Brings Soldiers All the Way Home, Easter Seals Helps Vets with TBI

'World Wide Moment' Photography Project Takes Peaceful Aim as Olympic Games Begin

We do in fact love or hate our enemies to the same degree that we love or hate ourselves. In the image of the enemy we will find the mirror in which we may see our own faces most clearly.
-- Sam Keen, Faces of the Enemy

Growing up, my family was an Olympics- loving family. Oh, yes.

Every four years we'd watch spell-bound as the world came together to compete and show their stuff. My parents, being political refugees from Hungary following the 1956 Revolution against the mighty Soviet Union, of course would root mightily against the Red giant. Remember the miracle 1980 USA hockey team? That USSR defeat not only brought our house down, it was celebrated by nearly the whole country back then.

These days, so much has changed politically, but our world still continues to harbor an "us against them" mentality, one bred on the feeling that we don't share bonds with others that don't look like us or talk like us or salute the same flag.

This adversary becomes sports(wo)man-like at the Olympics.

But, with China being the host country this year, we've seen more tumult and protest leading up to this years' games than we've witnessed in the past few gatherings. What to do?

One documentarian has chosen to deal with the situation by aiming his focus on fostering peace (rather than rallying against China; btw, the Chinese characters above spell "peace").

Today, as the Games begin, we're all invited to join in with him to help produce an interesting art project, World Wide Moment.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

From the Chicago Tribune:

With its political overtones and all the jingoistic claptrap, the Olympic Games are probably not the best way to promote world peace. Brett Brownell has a better idea.

A music video and documentary producer from Dallas, he wants people to be part of World Wide Moment, a photography project. At a prescribed time, participants will snap a photo that honors the idea of peace. As Brownell says, it's "an opportunity to feel a moment of peace with people all over the world."

The photos will get posted on the Internet and become part of a book and traveling exhibition. ...[H]e hopes the project will prove "that people from around the world can celebrate life, art and peace together, if only for one moment. I know it sounds altruistic and possibly quixotic, but in previous rehearsals for World Wide Moment, participants expressed a rare sense of peace, belonging and connection which lasted for many days."

The Moment comes at 8:08 a.m. (Beijing time) on 8-8-08 — just when the Olympics are starting (Brownell emphasizes that the project is not affiliated with the Games). In Chicago, which is 13 hours behind Beijing, that converts to 7:08 p.m. on Thursday.

So, get your cameras ready if you're so inclined and start snapping up some harmony, peace and love with the rest of us at 8:08pm EST/5:08pm PST. More information and instructions on uploading your creation at worldwidemoment.org.

And on a personal note, I'm sending all my best vibes to my brother-in-law and nephew who are in Beijing as part of the coaching team for our U.S. swimmers. Go, guys!

We'll be watching...and snapping, too.

DoD's $300M PTSD/TBI Research Push, Ft. Hood Presidential Candidate Debate?, Online Sleeplessness Chat

• Congress and the Pentagon are in the midst of funding a record $300 million military PTSD/TBI research push this summer. With approximately 1.4 million Americans diagnosed with TBI annually, civilians will benefit from the groundbreaking drive, too. "The Pentagon also will target new ways of delivering therapy to PTSD victims living in remote areas of the USA and reducing the stigma that can keep victims from seeking help."
  
  
• Since last November, Military Spouses for Change has been on a mission to bring our presidential candidates together for a Fort Hood, Texas, debate and discussion of issues important to military families. Founder Carissa Picard has so far succeeded in securing a date (August 11); getting CBS to agree to broadcast the event live; and received candidate John McCain's OK. As for Barack Obama? He says that due to scheduling difficulties he can't be there. Maybe something will change by then and the conversation will get underway. If not, a tip of the hat to MSC for their effort.
  
  
• Don't forget Tuesday's LA Times online chat on the sleeping difficulties of combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD. The chat begins at 9:00 am Eastern/noon Pacific, but the accompanying article is already online. Some stats: "About 36% of Army troops who have been back from Iraq for a year said they struggled nearly every day with feeling tired. About 34% said they had difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep or sleeping too much nearly every day... About 70% of veterans being treated for [PTSD] have sleep problems."
  
  
• And if you're looking for more stats on the mental health and well being of our OEF/OIF troops and veterans, "The military's invisible wounds" by David Isenberg would be well worth a read.

New Google Knol on Combat PTSD

Google has just launched a new online product called Knol (short for 'knowledge'), some say to compete with the ever popular Wikipedia. While there are some similarities, there are notable differences as well -- chief among them the ability to produce and control your own page of original content.

I've just created my knol on Combat PTSD (beefing it up with additional sections in the weeks ahead), and invite you to head over to read, rate and/or review it. You're welcome to leave comments and recommend changes, too.

Online Classes Help Everyone Learn More About Combat PTSD

Since you're online right now and have found your way to this blog, perhaps via a search engine or another link, you're most likely someone that's pretty comfortable with using the Internet.

It's a powerful source of information.

One of the Web's greatest strengths is that everything is right at your fingertips, all easily accessed from the comfort of home or work or maybe even a library or Internet cafe. Heck, just about anywhere you are if you're wireless these days.

In addition to the usual free-form tapping into digital knowledge, there are also more structured ways of learning on the Internet, too. I've poked around a bit and found three cyber classes on PTSD that I'm happy to share in extended.

Please note: The first two courses are "perishable," i.e., they start soon. If you're interested, sign up now rather than later.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for a list of online classes...

Perishable:
Be sure to register in time/soon

Boots to Books (coded as Strategies for College Success)
Citrus College (Glendora, CA)

Boots to Books is a special section specifically designed for all veterans (especially returning OIF/OEF veterans), their family members, friends, and supporters. The goal of Boots to Books is to assist the veteran student in making a positive transition from military to civilian life including school. This curriculum is designed to help the student veteran succeed in academics, work, family, and other social settings. The Boots to Books course will teach students interpersonal skills, methods of adapting to civilian life at work, school and at home, and techniques for managing Military Readjustment Transition Issues.

Fall 2008 Section ID: COUN 160 - CRN 21852
Dates: 09/02/2008 -12/20/2008
Times: Distance Learning
Instructor: Martinez, M. (email mmartinez@citruscollege.edu to register)
Sample syllabus from previous semester

PTSD and Violent Death: Interventions for a New Field
UC San Diego, Extension

PSY-4V351 Credit: 1 unit

This course provides an overview of the new field of violent death bereavement and its clinical picture. The risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other complications is often under-diagnosed and under-treated. Violent dying accounts for nearly ten percent of annual deaths in the U.S. and twenty percent of our returning military. Ten to 12 additional family members or caregivers are significantly impacted as well. This course covers emerging approaches and resources, along with the need for community based support. Participants learn about a preliminary, systematic model of intervention with a firm theoretical base, which, after a three-year pilot study, shows significant promise.

Note: This is a fully online course with approximately 9 hours of online coursework. There are no face-to-face sessions. Valid email required.

Other Credit: BRN, BBS: 9 CE hours.

Fall 2008 Section ID: 067731
Dates: 10/7/2008 - 11/22/2008
Fee: $125
Instructor: Connie A Saindon
Textbooks: No information available at this time.
Section Policies: No refund after: 10/10/2008

Evergreen:
Available 24/7, no registration dates

PTSD 101
National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD 101 is a web-based educational resource that is designed for busy practitioners who provide services to military men and women and their families as they recover from combat stress or other traumatic events. While this course is targeted towards health care professionals, anyone can download all modules and "take" the class. Details:

• A web-based curriculum of diverse topics focusing on issues related to combat stress/PTSD.
  
• Available on-demand.
  
• Presented by a faculty of recognized experts in the field of traumatic stress.
  
• CE Credits are available.

Related Posts

• First Combat PTSD College Course for Vets, Military Families Arrives

Australian PTSD Documentary: Casualties of War

There is a world of silence that sits between those who have seen unspeakable acts of violence and those who have not. -- Professor Sandy McFarlane, head of psychiatry at the University of Adelaide

So begins director Jennifer Lee's 2008 Australian documentary, Casualties of War, now available on YouTube (and at triple j tv).

"CASUALTIES OF WAR tells the story of Leigh, a Special Forces soldier who served with the Australian Army in East Timor. Leigh believes that the hardest part of going to war is coming home. A year after Leigh returned from East Timor he reached breaking point and left the army. It is only now, 4 years later, he feels able to speak out about the realities of being a soldier."

For Mature Audiences - strong language, violent images

Part 1


Click on 'Article Link' below tags for Parts 2 and 3...

Part 2


Part 3



Related Posts

• Stop-Loss in Theaters Today
  
• PBS and HBO Examine the Sacrifices of War
  
• Chicagoans Discuss 'In the Valley of Elah' and the Plight of Our Returning Troops
  
• New York Times Explores 'In the Valley of Elah' -- And Mentions 'Moving a Nation to Care'
  
• 'In the Valley of Elah' Coming September 21
  
• HBO's Baghdad Er: Army Issues Warning to Combat Troops w/PTSD
  
• PTSD Documentary Airs Today
  
• At the Movies: Film and PTSD

Military Construction and VA Appropriations, Disability Claims Modernization, Veterans Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment

As Congress begins their annual August break, a look at some of their pre-recess veterans-related work:

• The U.S. House of Representatives passed [409-4] the 2009 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill that would eclipse President Bush's budgetary request by $3.4 billion and gives the green light on construction of a new replacement VA hospital in Louisville, Ky. It still has to pass the Senate -- and the president's veto pen -- before the full $118 billion can be doled out.
  
  
• The House also rushed through another eight veterans' benefits bills, including the unanimous approval of the Disability Claims Modernization Act, which would speed up claims processing for those veterans recovering from disabilities clearly (i.e., serious physical combat wounds) connected to their military service. Senators Charles Schumer [D-NY] and Hillary Clinton [D-NY] have agreed to introduce Rep. John Hall's [D-NY] legislation it in the Senate in the "hopes of improving the delivery of compensation to veterans, their families and survivors."
  
  
• Meanwhile, the Senate passed the Veterans Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment Act, which would provide the nation's 3 million veterans drawing service-connected disability benefits the same cost-of-living increases Social Security recipients receive today. The legislation will have to pass the Senate and be signed into law before it can go into effect on December 1, 2008.
  
  
• The new GI Bill, dubbed "a GI Bill for the 21st century," officially went into effect on Friday, more than doubling the educational benefit each Afghanistan and Iraq veteran earns to $90,000 from $40,000. "The Post-9/11 GI Bill will cover full tuition at the most expensive public college in a veteran's home state, grant up to $1,000 for books and supplies, and provide a monthly living stipend."

Warrior Mind-Body-Spirit: Free OEF/OIF Returning Veteran Yoga Classes Springing Up Nationwide

I've been a runner for years (more like "jogging" the way I do it :o) and have always leaned on a number of yoga and qigong moves for my warm-up/cool-down. The spinal twist is one of my favorites as are mountain pose and warrior pose.

This summer, however, I've picked up my yoga and qigong practices a notch and have found my daily 30 minute to an hour routines not only give my body a great workout, they help to clear the mind of stress with every stretch and inhalation. What works for general tension also appears to work for those coping with PTSD, as research continues to show:

In a study [pdf] published last year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, a prominent PTSD expert found that a group of female patients who completed eight hatha yoga classes showed significantly more improvement in symptoms—including the frequency of intrusive thoughts and the severity of jangled nerves—than a similar group that had eight sessions of group therapy. The study also reported that yoga can improve heart-rate variability, a key indicator of a person's ability to calm herself. ...

The study's most striking findings were patients' own descriptions of how their lives changed, says the author, Bessel van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine and medical director of the Trauma Center, a clinic and training facility in Brookline, Massachusetts. Van der Kolk, who has studied trauma since the 1970s, is considered a pioneer in the field. ...

Van der Kolk first became interested in yoga several years ago, after he concluded that therapists treating psychological trauma need to work with the body as well as the mind. "The memory of the trauma is imprinted on the human organism," he says. "I don't think you can overcome it unless you learn to have a friendly relationship with your body."

In extended, you'll find a few more paragraphs from the Yoga Journal piece on Van der Kolk's efforts in this field, along with a look at recent studies and articles on the subject.

For those in a hurry to get started, Yoga For Vets has a nice list of yoga classes for warriors that are available across the country; I'm not sure when the list was created, as it doesn't include the programs introduced below, but it's worth a look-see. The Returning Veterans Resource Project NW has also collected a number of complimentary yoga, pilates and t'ai chi programs (as well as a whole slew of other resources for returning vets).

What a great benefit these programs are to our communities. They provide a healthful way to release stress and boost confidence, directly affecting the quality of life for local military families in general and the community as a whole.

Kudos to all who are doing this great work out there!

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Continuing:

To learn more about yoga, van der Kolk decided to try it himself. He chose hatha yoga because the style is widely available, got hooked on it, and became convinced it could help his patients. "The big question became: How can you help people confront their internal sensations?" he says. "Yoga is one way you can do that."

Van der Kolk found yoga a safe and gentle means of becoming reacquainted with the body. "Yoga reestablishes the sense of time," he says. "You notice how things change and flow inside your body." Learning relaxation and breathing techniques helps PTSD patients calm themselves down when they sense that a flashback or panic attack is coming. And yoga's emphasis on self-acceptance is important for victims of sexual assault, many of whom hate their bodies.

Already, the military has begun to investigate yoga's therapeutic potential. In a preliminary study [view the PowerPoint presentation given at the 10th Annual Force Health Protection Conference] at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., nine active-duty soldiers with PTSD were able to sleep better and felt less depressed after 12 weeks of Yoga Nidra (also known as yogic sleep, a practice that elicits deep relaxation).

"They felt more comfortable with situations that they couldn't control, and as a result, they felt more control over their lives," says Richard Miller, who is serving as a consultant to the Walter Reed researchers. Miller is a Sebastopol, California-based clinical psychologist, yoga teacher, and cofounder of the International Association of Yoga Therapy. A larger Yoga Nidra study, of 100 active-duty soldiers, is slated to start in late 2007 or early 2008. Still another, at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, will look at a combination of meditation, hatha yoga, and other techniques with veterans recently returned from Iraq.

Read the full Yoga Journal article; lots more info there.

So, while the military embraces yoga for active troops as seen by the wide support of its Warrior Resilience Program at Fort Bliss and all of these studies under way, private yoga practitioners across the country are springing into action, too, offering returning veterans complimentary classes to support their reintegration process.

From the Department of Veterans Affairs:

The War-Related Injury and Illness Study Center-DC is pleased to offer Yoga classes to interested combat veterans. Yoga therapy refers to an ancient Indian body of knowledge that has been practiced for over 5000 years. The word "Yoga" comes from the Sanskrit word "yuj" which means "to unite or integrate." Yoga therapy is designed to achieve and maintain one’s personal balance through exercise, breathing, and meditation - the three main Yoga structures.

The WRIISC-DC Yoga classes, may be appropriate for combat veterans experiencing chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and/or other health concerns. During these classes, the WRIISC-DC yoga instructor teaches yoga techniques that may be used to improve health symptoms and enhance overall quality of life.

There are two Yoga sessions offered each Thursday on a walk-in basis from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Please try to arrive 15 minutes prior to the start of the class.

If you are a combat veteran and are interested in attending our free yoga classes, please contact the WRIISC office at (202) 745-8249 for more information

From the [Westborough, MA] Community Advocate:

Four years ago, Lucy Cimini, founding director of the Central Massachusetts Yoga Institute (CMYI) in West Boylston, decided to try to offer some relief from the effects of PTSD and developed a class for veterans. She called the class "Yoga Warrior" and offered it free of charge. PTSD soldiers who have participated in the program describe it on the CMYI website as "therapeutic because it is not therapy: there is no analyzing, no talking, no remembering."

After witnessing the program's success, Marlborough resident Lynn Stoller partnered up with Cimini. Stoller, who has a background in occupational therapy and yoga, and Cimini are using the "Yoga Warrior" classes to study the effects of yoga on returning veterans with PTSD. Stoller explained that one of the more detrimental effects of PTSD is that soldiers have a hyperactive "flight or fight" response.

"This was entrained in the soldiers' minds [so that they would] be battle-ready," she said. This response, which is essential on the battlefield, leaves returning soldiers with difficulty regulating their responses and returning to a normal sensory input. As a result, Stoller explained, soldiers will try to control this response by avoiding situations - like crowds - that could trigger it.

"Trying to control sensory input often ends up limiting their world ... They cannot turn this off when they come home," Stoller said.

The abnormal behavior, according to Stoller, is caused by the fact that the autonomic nervous system (ANS) is out of synch. Functions of the ANS are performed without conscious control, except through breathing. Because yoga is centered on connecting the mind and body in the present moment through breathing, it can help reset the nervous system.

"Through breath, it reconnects the mind and body in the present moment," Stoller said. "... Working with these breathing patterns can help reset the ANS. I have discovered that yoga can help give some relief."

Because of the success that Cimini has had over the years with veterans in West Boylston, Stoller is in the process of organizing a "Yoga Warriors" class in the Framingham area.

"These vets are returning from war with significant problems," Stoller said. "I do not feel like our society is adequately addressing it or are prepared for what is coming down the road."

To offer this program, Stoller and other instructors often volunteer times and rely on minimal grants to off set some of the costs. Because of the positive results that have been achieved, Stoller and Cimini are working to have yoga classes approved as a health benefit for veterans.

"We have Vietnam veterans still dealing with PTSD and now we have young troops returning home with it," Stoller said. "... This is an extremely important cause."

For more information about the classes opening up in Framingham or in West Boylston, contact the CMYI at 508-835-1176 or visit the website at www.centralmassyoga.com.

From Medical News Today:

The New York Sports Clubs announced a collaboration with the Queens Vet Center, a counseling service that helps veterans of all wars readjust to civilian life. Because of the proven benefits of yoga in helping to reduce stress, the New York Sports Clubs in Glendale at 80-00 Cooper Avenue in Queens will offer free weekly yoga classes for veterans to complement the services provided by the Vet Center.

The Vet Center offers free counseling services such as psychotherapy, group counseling, marriage counseling, and employment counseling to help veterans deal with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans from all wars and conflicts, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, are eligible to visit the center.

"At the Center, we believe that healing from trauma involves the body, mind and spirit, which is really the essence of yoga," says counselor Francisca Nazario. "That is why we were so grateful when the New York Sports Clubs volunteered to organize classes for our vets."

"The response to the yoga classes has been very positive. We're honored to be able to help the veterans and it's our privilege to work with such a worthy organization as the Queens Vet Center," says Alex Alimanestianu, CEO for New York Sports Clubs.

The above are simply a small smattering of the wide range of yoga classes available to veterans today.

Again, Yoga for Vets has compiled an extensive list of programs; more complimentary veterans reintegration retreats and counseling resources for you to dig through as well. If you'd rather being your yoga practice at home, YogaDownload has free multimedia resources for you.

And, finally: Wounded Times shares a couple of articles on yoga; Healing Combat Trauma also has a great page of yoga links.


Related Posts

• Strengthening Mind-Body-Spirit: Novel PTSD Treatment Method Study Seeks OEF/OIF Veterans
  
• Army Chief: Fort Bliss' Warrior Resilience Program Should be Replicated
  
• Attempts to Remove PTSD Stigma Gain Steam Under Secretary Gates
  
• New Age Treatments for a New Age of Warfare: Army Seeking Alternative, Holistic Therapy Research Proposals
  
• Deep Breathing Techniques for Stress Release
  
• Fort Bliss PTSD Recovery Center Aims to Return Troops Quickly to Battle

Strengthening Mind-Body-Spirit: Novel PTSD Treatment Method Study Seeks OEF/OIF Veterans

Recently, I received this request in my email box:

The Inner Resources Center of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology is conducting a study about the effects of military participation in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the light of the current dialogue concerning the difficulties that veterans have in finding effective mental health treatment, this study is an opportunity for veterans to experience and evaluate novel treatment methods for coping with the difficulties of serving in the military and coming back home. Meditation or Education Participants will be compensated for their time. Is it possible to post the information about our study on your website?

Find all the information on the study below the fold.

But, before we get to that, I'd like to share a few words on the blossoming awakening that's clearly been taking place in the area of combat PTSD health care. First, a personal story:

This past summer, I've been blessed by taking a breather. I've been doing a lot of reading and some writing in the background on holistic forms of therapy for PTSD, depression and general stress.

After three years of juggling things here at PTSD Combat, researching and writing a slim offering on combat PTSD, and attending NIU as an Honors student (and being closer than I might have liked -- yet certainly not as close as those who lost their lives or were inside that very room -- to February's fatal school shooting), by May I was feeling spent and in need of a break to recharge my batteries and refocus my energies.

It's amazing what an investment in mind, body, and spirit renewal can do for someone simply a bit worn out.

I can't help but wonder what it could do for someone coping with more serious issues like PTSD. In light of the fact that so few of our traditional treatment therapies seem to be working, it's nice to see that the Army is now firmly on the cutting edge (it's about time...) -- and what they're finding is that these therapies do have a role to play in warrior well being.

Hopefully, we'll continue to see a more popular embrace of holistic therapies such as mindfulness mediation, yoga or other forms of exercise, bioenergy, etc. because these mind-body-spirit tools can serve a serious function in helping us all achieve overall strength and wellness. I know they've certainly helped me clear the cobwebs away and get back to business.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more on the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology OEF/OIF veteran study...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

An example of this new enlightened approach in action is found in the Virginia Tech strength and conditioning program (VT, as you might recall, is also the site of previous school shooting; their comfort and support meant a lot to us in the days after ours).

From Hokie Sports:

Dr. Mike Gentry wouldn't have it any other way.

Gentry, in his 22nd season at Virginia Tech, serves as the Hokies' assistant AD for athletic performance. His duties include overseeing the strength and conditioning coaches who are responsible for the training of athletes in all 21 varsity sports at Virginia Tech, while also continuing to personally lead the training of the football team. After more than two decades, Gentry has built one of the nation's top programs, and one that clearly has evolved over the years.

"In the last five years, we've been allowed to put in place and move forward with a structure that was started in the late 90's," Gentry said. "We've moved beyond being just strength and conditioning into a more holistic approach that involves sports nutrition with Amy Freel, who is a full time athletics employee and registered dietician, and sports psychology with Dr. (Gary) Bennett, formerly of the Virginia Tech Cook Counseling Center and now full-time in our department. We're able to offer our athletes a lot of things that other schools don't have in place."

It's that combination of building both the mind and body that has made a huge impact on Virginia Tech athletes in recent years.

"It's important because we are not programming machines here; these are people," Gentry said. "People need help in different areas. If an athlete is having a problem off the field and it's causing some anxiety or depression, it's going to spill into their training and their performance. If they're not eating right or don't understand what their body composition is, they can be spinning their wheels in their training. We're trying to look at the entire athlete and see what we can do to assist in the development of the whole person."

That means Tech students have a full-time psychologist and a full-time dietician within 10 yards of their weight rooms. "Our particular configuration may be a bit unique," Gentry suggested. ...

"The administration at Virginia Tech deserves the credit for letting Mike [Gentry] put those things in place," legendary strength coach Boyd Eppley said. Eppley, the former coach at Nebraska, is considered to be the 'Godfather' of strength and conditioning.

"It doesn't happen without the support of the athletic director and staff. Schools like Virginia Tech and Texas, they 'get it.' They understand it's more than just strength and conditioning. It's the psychological approach to motivation and developing a complete profile of an athlete."

Hey, if this is good enough -- both physically and mentally -- for VT's rough-and-tumble athletes, it should be good enough for our nation's other high-powered and accomplished individuals: troops serving in or veterans of our Armed Forces.

Not surprisingly (to me at least) my fellow partner-in-crime, PTSD blogger Lily Casura over at the very fine Healing Combat Trauma, has immersed herself in the very same topic of late and has been writing some really exquisite stuff on the issue. I would heartily, heartily recommend taking a look at her Mind Body Medicine tag to catch a glimpse of what I mean. You won't regret it.

In future posts, I'll continue to share some of what I've personally unearthed and learned during my forays into the topic. I think we are going to continue to see an up tick in energy and attention to these all-encompassing approaches to easing the pain and suffering that so many with PTSD and depression -- or merely acute stress or exhaustion -- endure.

There's no reason why anyone should be a prisoner to their past, held hostage by their thoughts ruminating over and over on events that have long since transpired. And there's certainly no reason anyone should have to deal with combat trauma alone -- they are not the only ones at war. Our entire nation is at war and it's our duty to carry our own share of the load.

In the final analysis, we are one. No matter how alone we feel at times -- or even how much we'd just like to be left alone -- one person's angst is everyone's angst. There's just no way around it.

Details from Free Press Release:

CONTACT:
Elena Arney
Public Relations, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology
530-386-5932 direct
elena_arney@yahoo.com

Redwood City, Calif. (February 25, 2008) – The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology (PGSP), a private, independent professional school educating undergraduate and graduate students in the greater Bay Area, announced today that faculty member Lynn C. Waelde, Ph.D. is launching a two part study of military veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Waelde and her team of nine PGSP doctoral students will study the experiences and responses of military personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Waelde began inviting individuals for participation this week.

“The war in Iraq has been going on for six years, and yet little research has been done about how to provide treatment to these veterans from a psychological standpoint,” says Dr. Waelde. “We know more about the Vietnam generation than we do this group.”

The first part of Dr. Waelde’s investigation will interview veterans and active duty military personnel about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The survey pool will not be limited to combat troops. Dr. Waelde and her team are soliciting all members of the military, from doctors and engineers to those on the front lines, from any branch of the armed forces who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

After this initial round of research is complete, Dr. Waelde will invite those who qualify to participate in an eight week program. Sessions will be conducted at the school’s not-for-profit clinic, the Kurt and Barbara Gronowski Clinic in Los Altos, Calif. as well as at several convenient locations through the Bay Area. This group will include at least 60 veterans.

A major focus of Dr. Waelde’s current research is the empirical validation of Inner Resources TM, a psychotherapeutic meditation intervention that she developed. Dr. Waelde will test her meditation techniques and a telehealth intervention for their ability to provide relief for symptoms experienced as a result of military service.

Dr. Waelde currently runs the Inner Resources program at the Gronowski Clinic where patients are offered relaxation, breathing, and meditation techniques to enhance their abilities to cope with stress.

Veterans interested in participating in the study may contact Dr. Waelde’s team at 650-421-4874. For more information on the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, or call 800-818-6136. For more information about the Kurt and Barbara Gronowski Clinic, please call 650-961-9300.

About the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology
The Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, a private, independent professional school in the San Francisco Bay area, has educated doctoral students since 1975. In 2006, it added an undergraduate program and currently offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology through a partnership with De Anza College. Established to serve society, PGSP is a diverse learning community dedicated to the search for knowledge and its dissemination. PGSP brings together a community of highly talented faculty and graduate students working side-by-side to bring scientific rigor and theoretical knowledge to the analysis and practice of clinical psychology.

About the Kurt and Barbara Psychology Clinic
The Kurt and Barbara Gronowski Psychology Clinic at PGSP is a community-based psychology training clinic and treatment center dedicated to providing high quality, evidence-based, clinical services to adults, children, and families in our community. Our clinic uses several evidence based psychological treatments including cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, illness management, and family psychoeducation and family management.

Program details:

Inner Resources™ for Stress:

* An educational program using relaxation, breathing, and meditation to enhance your ability to cope with stress
* Learn to deal with stress as it is happening
* Participants benefit from a small group setting and individualized attention
* Participants receive a week-by-week manual and audio recordings of guided practice sessions for home use

Related Posts

• Army Chief: Fort Bliss' Warrior Resilience Program Should be Replicated
  
• Attempts to Remove PTSD Stigma Gain Steam Under Secretary Gates
  
• New Age Treatments for a New Age of Warfare: Army Seeking Alternative, Holistic Therapy Research Proposals
  
• Fort Bliss PTSD Recovery Center Aims to Return Troops Quickly to Battle
  

War and Sleep: LA Times Offers Story, Live Chat on PTSD Sleep Disorders on Tuesday

An invitation from the Los Angeles Times Booster Shots blog asking us to join in on an upcoming exploration -- both in print and online via a live chat this Tuesday, August 5 -- of the difficulty many combat veterans face in getting a fitful night's sleep. (Heaven knows writers and other creatives like myself generally fall into the night owl category, too, but our lack of sleep is obviously of the less mentally draining and certainly less alarming sort.)

First, details from the Times, and below the fold you'll find a number of recently related reports that have turned up in the news and clinical journals:

Mitch Hood, 25, spent two tours in Iraq with the Marines. Now, like many other veterans, he faces a new enemy: sleep.

Hood has nightmares nearly every night, many like the one above, laced with the fear he felt when he was in Iraq. Most nights, he battles his own body's need to sleep, opting to stay awake so he doesn't fall into nightmares.

Hood knows he is not the only one with these problems. Sleep and wakefulness issues are the most common health problems described by recently returned soldiers, researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center found in a study published last year.

A Times reporter and videographer stayed up all night with the former Marine and his fiancee to witness his struggles. The print story will appear in Tuesday's newspaper. A video of the vigil, plus interviews with Hood and other veterans, accompany the story on the Web.

Join us for a live Web chat at noon Tuesday to discuss the influence of war on sleep and how physicians try to treat the problems. We will be doing a question-and-answer session with Dr. Thomas C. Neylan, director of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) Program at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Steve Woodward, director of the Sleep Research Laboratory at the VA's National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Palo Alto.

Mark your calendars and set your bookmarks -- the chat happens right here Aug. 5 at noon Pacific time.

Click on 'Article Link' below tags for more...

In educational interest, article(s) quoted from extensively.

Just last month, Meghan Cooke filed a related piece in the Fayetteville Observer. After introducing us to Sgt. Rashaun Carpenter, a two-time Iraq vet who had survived a downed-by-Fallujah-insurgents chopper crash only to endure TBI, arm and pelvis injuries and intrusive symptoms of PTSD including endless nightmares of being set on fire, shot and stabbed, Cooke gives us an overview of the dilemma:

[F]or many military personnel and veterans, sleep is hard to come by. Whether they're on the front lines or reliving traumatic memories years after combat, sleep disorders are a growing part of military life. Statistics about the number of military personnel with sleep disorders are difficult to determine because the disorders are often symptoms of other problems, doctors say.

Lt. Col. Scott Johnson, chief of the Department of Medicine at Womack Army Medical Center, said doctors there have seen a significant number of people seeking treatment for sleep problems. Sleep apnea, severe snoring and restless leg syndrome are among some of the common complaints, he said. But some soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing what he described as circadian rhythm disturbance.

People function on a 24-hour cycle known as the circadian rhythm. When soldiers are required to be alert when their bodies are typically asleep, some develop rhythm disturbances. Similar disturbances are also seen in civilian shift workers.

"As you're carrying a M-16 door-to-door, you live on an adrenaline rush," Johnson said. But eventually, they have to crash, he said.

Johnson said soldiers returning from deployment also face the stress of re-entering a non-combat environment. Whether they experience problems reintegrating into their families, alcohol abuse or even post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep issues might arise.

In Carpenter's case, due to his PTSD-related nightmares, he has to find a way to make it through his days running on a couple of hours of sleep a night -- tops.

He attends PTSD support group meetings every week. "Nobody in the group gets more than five hours of sleep, I'd say," he said.

Dr. Jack Edinger, a psychologist at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a psychiatric professor at Duke University, said sleep disturbances are a common symptom in PTSD patients. Recovery can include a complex array of treatments when PTSD is involved, he said.

One is imagery reversal therapy, a process by which patients write out their nightmares with a new, positive ending. Then they review it in their minds with the new ending. Edinger said this may reduce the frequency and severity of the nightmare.

In May, the Army released statistics that showed that the number of new PTSD cases increased by 46.4 percent in 2007 from the previous year, bringing the number of diagnoses to nearly 40,000 troops since the war began. ...

Dr. Mary Fruit, chief of mental health at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center, said sleep disorders are often related to other health problems, including PTSD. Some are simply afraid to go to sleep, she said.

"I've had combat veterans say, 'Bad things happen at night,'" she said. "That's when Charlie comes. "If that's something they endure everyday for 12 months, are we surprised they come back with sleep problems?"

Fruit said people can improve sleep by adopting healthy sleep habits, such as setting a regular sleep schedule, avoiding caffeine in the evenings and making the bedroom a calm refuge. But Fruit said few patients seek help who only have problems with sleeping. Doctors often must delve deeper to resolve underlying issues.

"The sleep disruption is so intertwined it's not usually the only thing on the table," Fruit said. "If you're well-rested, you're better able to deal with the other problems.

"The reality is that no one who goes to war is ever the same."

Another example of one veterans' struggle for a peaceful night's rest in last month's Suburban Chicago Daily Herald:

Most times, Jim Black surfs the Internet into the early morning hours. When he does sleep, it's not for long and it's not very restful because of the nightmares.

"They're so vivid," says the 26-year-old Lake Villa resident. "I haven't gotten eight hours of sleep in five years." The nightmares take him back to his time in Iraq, where Black served as a reconnaissance specialist in the Army beginning in 2003, at the dawn of the Iraq War.

"I had a 5-year-old throw a grenade in my truck the second day I was there. My son is 5," Black says matter-of-factly. Listening, as always, is his father-in-law, Tim Corrigan. He's heard a lot the last few years and has tried to help. But he has never been in combat and can't provide what Black needs most: someone who truly understands.

The National Center for PTSD's fact sheet on sleep disorders and PTSD by Pamela Swales, Ph.D. and Jessica Hamblen, Ph.D.:

Why do people with PTSD have sleep problems?

There are many reasons why people with PTSD may have trouble sleeping:

Changes in your brain:
PTSD can cause changes in the brain making it difficult to sleep. Many people with PTSD may feel they need to be on guard or "on the lookout," to protect him or herself from danger. It is difficult to have restful sleep when you feel the need to be always alert.

Medical Problems:
There are medical problems that are commonly found in people with PTSD such as chronic pain, stomach problems, and pelvic-area problems in women. They physical problems can make going to sleep difficult.

Your Thoughts:
Your thoughts can make it difficult to fall asleep. People with PTSD often worry about general problems or worry that they are in danger. If you have not been able to sleep for several nights (or even weeks), you may start to worry that you won't be able to fall asleep. These thoughts can keep you awake.

Drugs or Alcohol:
Some people with PTSD use drugs or alcohol to help them cope with their symptoms. Drinking and using drugs can make it more difficult to fall asleep.

Upsetting Dreams or Nightmares:
Nightmares are common for people with PTSD. Nightmares can wake you up in the middle of the night, making your sleep less restful. Or, you may find it difficult to fall asleep because you are afraid you might have a nightmare.

Hearing a Noise:
Many people with PTSD wake up easily if they hear a noise. You may feel that you need to get up and check your room to make sure you are safe.

Read the rest for valuable tips on coping with sleeplessness. And finally, the April issue of Biological Psychiatry reported:

A generic drug already used by millions of Americans for high blood pressure and prostate problems has been found to improve sleep and lessen trauma nightmares in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

"This is the first drug that has been demonstrated effective for PTSD nightmares and sleep disruption," said Murray A. Raskind, MD, executive director of the mental health service at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System and lead author of a study appearing April 15 in Biological Psychiatry.

The randomized trial of 40 veterans compared a nightly dose of prazosin (PRAISE-oh-sin) with placebo over eight weeks. Participants continued to take other prescribed medications over the course of the trial.

At the end of the study, veterans randomized to prazosin reported significantly improved sleep quality, reduced trauma nightmares, a better overall sense of well being, and an improved ability to function.

"These nighttime symptoms are heavily troublesome to veterans," said Raskind, who also is director of VA’s VISN 20 (Veterans Integrated Service Network #20) Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers program (MIRECC). "If you get the nighttime symptoms under control, veterans feel better all around."

Read more on above study. And now I'm off to bed...oy.


Related Posts

• Study: Drug May Ease Combat PTSD Nightmare Incidence
  
• APA Meeting: Worse Physical Health Follows Combat PTSD