Join Today & Get 4% Cash Back Then 6, 7...Up to 10% Off Reorders!

April 17, 2008, 5:12 pm
Flag as Inappropriate ewills  

Wow this is a disheartening number. I have 7 family members who have been to either Afghanistan or Iraq on several tours. Luckily we haven't noticed any change in them.

Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan -- 300,000 in all -- report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slight more than half have sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

In addition, researchers found about 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed, with 7 percent reporting both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression.

Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider “minimally adequate” for their illnesses.

In the first analysis of its kind, researchers estimate that PTSD and depression among returning service members will cost the nation as much as $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment -- an amount that includes both direct medical care and costs for lost productivity and suicide. Investing in more high-quality treatment could save close to $2 billion within two years by substantially reducing those indirect costs, the 500-page study concludes.

From the Science Blog

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/1-5-iraq-afghanistan-vet-has-ptsd-major-depression-rand-15954.html

Those are eye opening. I have family about to leave for a second tour at the end of the summer. My prayers are with all our troops.

I'm not surprised at all. It's a gruesome war over there. My brother returned from his second tour in Iraq just 6 months ago. He has PTSD. So do all his friends. There is stuff he's seen he can never talk about. It's terrible.

War is a terrible, terrible thing and there are so many young men over fighting this war right now. To me it seems that the military is not equipped to handle all these soldiers with PTSD and they need to do something about that quickly.

I'm not surprised by any of that. My mom has PTSD from serving back during Vietnam. She has been "in treatment" for a couple years now and all its done is served to make her think its ok to act irrationally and blame it on "her condition". Not to say that it doesn't exist but she was fine for over 20yrs and hasn't gotten even minimally better since she started treatment. I can't even imagine how frustrating it would be for someone with much worse PTSD.

So this depression is contagious? That's weird. I've never heard of a depression being contagious. And it's contagious is Iraq and Afganistan? Akward.