A Headquarters for PTSD Care

VA Opens Office for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in White River Jct. “PTSD is a thing that I don't think a person will ever get over,” said Jerry Patch, 58, of Springfield, who suffers from the disorder.

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=247bc159-33bf-49ed-9d5a-fb9960c99551

http://www.vnews.com/10132010/7175163.htm                                      A Headquarters for PTSD Care  •  VA Opens Office for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder  •  By Gregory Trotter  •  Valley News Staff Writer  •  White River Junction -- Wearing a crisp Veterans of Foreign War cap and holding a cup of coffee, Jerry Patch had drifted down from the veteran's hospital yesterday to witness the grand opening ceremony of the new headquarters for the post-traumatic stress disorder center. Since returning from Desert Storm in 1991, Patch has suffered from bouts of deep depression and flashbacks of incidents that he didn't wish to talk about.  •  “PTSD is a thing that I don't think a person will ever get over,” said Patch, 58, of Springfield, who suffers from the disorder.  •  But there is some reason for hope that PTSD research and treatment has advanced far beyond what it was just 30 years ago, a hope that was symbolized with some pageantry as the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center christened its new building for the post-traumatic stress disorder center yesterday.  •  Vermont's U.S. senators, research experts and veterans were also there to witness the ribbon cutting of the new two-story building off of Route 5. Officially known as the Executive Division of the National Center for PTSD, it was previously housed in the former nurses' dormitories, built in 1937, on the hospital campus. The center has six other specialized divisions in other locations throughout the country, including Boston, West Haven, Conn., California and Hawaii.  •  Since the center's inception in 1989, PTSD has become a more commonly understood and accepted disorder, with some recent government statistics saying 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from it. For Patch, the Desert Storm veteran, learning to manage PTSD has been a long road.  •  After years of counseling at the VA hospoital in White River, meditation, medication and camaraderie with other veterans he has since met, Patch said he has his PTSD “pretty well under control.” To avoid triggering flashbacks, he doesn't watch war movies and limits himself to local news. He largely credited the medical staff for his progress.  •  “War is one of the worst things a person can experience,” Patch said. “I'm afraid we're going to see a terrible increase of PTSD with the troops coming home.”  •  The growing understanding of PTSD over the years has prompted the need for more extensive research on its treatment and prevention, said Dr. Matt Friedman, executive director of the national PTSD center.  •  “(The old building) remains a grand old building, which housed us quite well for 21 years, until we outgrew it and just couldn't carve out sufficient space to meet our needs as the National Center continued to grow to support expanding VA programs for treatment of PTSD,” Friedman said in his remarks.  •  The new building will allow the center the space to hire more staff and do more extensive research into preventing PTSD. In his speech, Friedman gave a historical overview of the study and treatment of the disorder; the timeline was remarkably brief.  •  Though many Vietnam War veterans suffered from the disorder, there would not be an actual diagnosis until years later, Friedman said. Instead, they called it “post-Vietnam syndrome” in the '70s, for lack of a better term, he said.  •  “Combat veterans were flooding our clinics, occupying inpatient beds and demanding that we do something to alleviate their suffering and distress,” said Friedman, who began working as a psychiatrist at the VA hospital in 1973. “We didn't know what to do for them.”  •  Many Vietnam-era veterans showed what are now known to be common PTSD symptoms: depression, flashbacks of wartime scenarios, distrust and quick tempers, he said. At about the same time, the women's movement of the '70s led to increased research into the trauma suffered by rape victims.  •  The concurrent trauma research movements led to a “social consciousness about the prevalence of trauma, its toxicity and capacity to cause severe psychiatric impairment and sometimes, to ruin lives,” Friedman said.  •  In 1984, the Veterans Health Care Act established a National Center for PTSD charged to “carry out and promote the training of health-care and related personnel in, and research into, the causes and diagnosis of PTSD and the treatment of Veterans for PTSD.”  •  In recent years, the center has shifted its focus from solely researching and disseminating information to also working directly with VA mental health specialists, and even more recently, primary care clinicians in the community, Friedman said later.  •  At the ceremony yesterday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who sits on the Senate Veterans Committee, urged veterans to seek treatment for PTSD.  •  “The injuries of war are many and they are all tragic. Sometimes it is a lost leg or an arm. Sometimes it is the loss of an eye or a hearing impairment,” Sanders said. “And, sometimes it is PTSD -- one of the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and as real an injury as any other.”  •  U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the new center could play an important role in helping Vermont's troops yet to return from Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom likely could suffer from PTSD.  •  “As you all know, we have well over a thousand Vermont Guardsmen in Afghanistan today. Sadly, many of them may face PTSD symptoms,” Leahy said. “The work of this center will go a long way toward helping them through their times of difficulty.”  •  More than 2,000 National Guard from the Twin States are expected to return from Iraq by the end of next month. The PTSD center is but one piece of a network of agencies working together to support what can be a difficult transition home.  •  Despite an improved awareness of PTSD, military suicide rates have climbed in recent years. According to a report recently released by the Department of Defense Task Force on the Prevention of Suicide by Members of the Armed Forces: “In the 5 years from 2005 to 2009, more than 1,100 members of the Armed Forces took their own lives, an average of 1 suicide every 36 hours. In that same period, the suicide rates among Marines and Soldiers sharply increased; the rate in the Army more than doubled.”  •  Last year, 309 service members took their own lives, according to the report. In 2008, 267 committed suicide. In 2007, the number was 224.  •  After the ceremony, Friedman pointed out that not all of those suicides could be attributed to PTSD and speculated that the rise in suicide numbers had to do with the length of the Iraq War and better reporting.  •  “Come Sept. 11, it's going to be 10 years. We've had many men and women deploying and redeploying,” Friedman said. “What exactly that had to do with the suicides, we don't know but we’re trying hard to understand.”  •