"...incidents of canine post-traumatic stress disorder are on the rise, said Lt. Col. Richard A. Vargus, chief of the law enforcement branch at CENTCOM.
"Our biggest issue that we have with canines is canine PTSD," he said. "We've seen a significant issue with that because when you're standing 10 feet away from an explosion, the dog has emotions and the dog is affected as well."
If the dog is fearful, it may bite the handler, run and hide, or cower behind the handler if it thinks the team is preparing to go on patrol, Vargus said.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Arnold School of Public Health, and the Dorn VA Medical Center, shows that PTSD patients have increased levels of inflammation, caused by an increase in certain types of cells that regulate the immune functions.Read more here:
The results are significant because they could lead to novel methods for diagnosis and treatment of PTSD, said Dr. Prakash Nagarkatti, associate dean and Carolina Distinguished Professor at the USC medical school, who is the lead researcher in this study.
The findings also are the basis for a new $1.72 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to Nagarkatti and his team of researchers, who will intensify their research on the pathological basis of immune dysfunction in war veterans with PTSD.
A “trauma sensitive” yoga class is taught very differently from the yoga class with which we are familiar -- soft music, altars, incense, physical adjustments. A typical yoga class may not be comfortable place for a trauma survivor and in fact may feel very dangerous. Merely saying the word "relax" can be a PTSD trigger if the person was told to relax and then was abused.
For someone who has been abused, a physical assist can be a severe trigger for PTSD. Many teachers say, "but I always ask first." Think about that statement. For someone who has a history of abuse and was not allowed to say no (so has issues with power and control), assists are problematic.
Military mental-health workers constantly try to reduce the stigma associated with mental-health ills, and one way to do that is to not term the problem a disorder.
Some veterans agree, but others -- fearful the name change is simply a way of minimizing what they're going through -- don't. "It's a double-edged sword," a long-time Army psychiatrist says privately. "We're trying to reduce the stigma associated with the condition, but it's in the DSM-4 [the American Psychiatric Associati0n's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), the accepted roster of various mental conditions] as PTSD. And some veterans fear that deleting disorder will jeopardize the VA benefits they get for it."
proposes a healthy $7.2 billion to research and treat post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. This is an increase of $765 (14.6%) compared to the current, 2011, budget.
"A June 2010 internal report from the Defense Department's Pharmacoeconomic Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio showed that 213,972, or 20 percent of the 1.1 million active-duty troops surveyed, were taking some form of psychotropic drug: antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedative hypnotics, or other controlled substances."
"Smith said he was "flabbergasted" that military doctors prescribed Seroquel as a sleep aid, as the Food and Drug Administration has not approved such a use and other drugs are more effective. Breggin agreed, calling Seroquel "very dangerous, expensive and not proven to be more beneficial than other drugs."
Jackson noted Seroquel has the addictive potential of opioids, such heroin."
"White said Andrew was so befuddled by his drug cocktail, which included Klonopin, a benzodiazepine, and hydrocodone, an opiate, that his wife, Shirley, had to dole them out forAndrew. White said Seroquel did not diminish Andrew's nightmares at even such a high dosage.
While talk therapy is widely viewed as one of the most effective treatments for some mental health problems, including PTSD, White said Andrew had only a few such sessions, primarily with a local veterans' peer therapy group. It was not until the week Andrew died that a VA psychiatrist decided to begin intensive sessions with him."
Researchers have compiled significant evidence demonstrating that sexual harassment leads to psychological harm, including the full symptom picture of PTSD, but few have examined the psychological processes involved. Research on attributions among trauma victims would suggest that causal attributions and perceptions of control may be important predictors of outcomes. The authors discuss a study involving a path model that used data from 189 women involved in sexual harassment litigation. Results indicate that both self-blame and harasser blame were positively related to PTSD symptoms. Control over recovery and the perception that future harassment is unlikely were both related to fewer PTSD symptoms. Unexpectedly, perceived control over future harassment is related to higher levels of PTSD symptoms. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
