Pentagon reworks PTSD strategy

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/02/19/2480553/pentagon-reworks-ptsd-strategy.html#storylink=misearch

Pentagon reworks PTSD strategy
ADAM ASHTON; Staff writer
Published: Feb. 19, 2013 at 12:00 a.m. PST

The Defense Department aims to create a more accepting environment for service members seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder in its latest behavioral health guidelines, according to a pair of documents obtained by The News Tribune.

The Army Medical Command released its new policy in April in the thick of an investigation at Madigan Army Medical Center. The probe centered on a team of doctors known as forensic psychiatrists who sometimes downgraded behavioral health diagnoses for soldiers receiving medical retirements.

The Pentagon published another set of guidelines in August, presumably after the Madigan investigations concluded. It lifts some language from the Army policy and compels a standard approach to PTSD across all the Armed Forces.

Both documents discourage doctors from relying heavily on medication to treat PTSD, favoring therapy over drugs. They note that a class of psychoactive drugs called benzodiazepines carries “risks that exceed benefits.”

[TM99]

1. About damned time!

Now if they will also recognize that all trauma from sexual abuse to physical abuse to war trauma is a physical as well as a mental phenomena, then real healing might occur.

[LiberalEsto]

2. Today's Washington Post has an article on mindfulness meditation for service members

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/mindfulness-and-meditation-training-could-ease-ptsd-symptoms-researchers-say/2013/02/16/a296a52a-4ad2-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_story.html