Improving The Quality Of Life For Veterans Suffering From Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( Ptsd ) Essay

Hundreds of thousands of United States veterans are not able to leave the horrors of war on the battlefield (“Forever at War: Veterans Everyday Battles with PTSD” 1). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the reason why these courageous military service members cannot live a normal life when they are discharged. One out of every five military service members on combat tours—about 300,000 so far—return home with symptoms of PTSD or major depression. According to the Rand Study, almost half of these cases go untreated because of the disgrace that the military and civil society attach to mental disorders (McGirk 1). The general population of the world has to admit that they have had a nightmare before. Imagine not being able to sleep one

Over the last decade, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have drastically increased the need for effective mental health services and treatment for U.S. veterans and service members, especially those suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Nearly 1.5 million American service members have been deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) since the attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001 (Price, Gros, Strachan, Ruggiero, & Acierno, 2013). Approximately 25% of soldiers and wounded warriors returning home from OEF/OIF present with mental illness due to combat-related violence and other trauma exposure (Steinberg & Eisner, 2015). According to Price and colleagues (2013), OEF/OIF soldiers and veterans are at greater risk for developing mental illness compared to others who served in past military operations.

Today, hundreds of thousands of service men and women and recent military veterans have seen combat. Many have been shot at, seen their buddies killed, or witnessed death up close. These are types of events that can lead to Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder ("Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD: A Growing Epidemic. “) Anyone that has gone through a traumatic event can be diagnosed with PTSD but research shows, military men and women are more susceptible to having PTSD (PTSD: A Growing Epidemic.) And, with little help from the US, many Veterans do not get the help they need or get treated for PTSD. Military men and women begin to

There have been many diagnoses of PTSD in American soldiers. As Mark Thomas said in a magazine article, “The National Academy of Sciences have report estimated that up to 20% of 2.6 million US men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq may have it (PTSD)”(Thomas). This quote expresses that nearly 520,000 US families have been affected by this disorder. It also shows that PTSD has become a large enough issue that more and more people and

I find it troubling that our Soldier’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms are being discredited by the medical community. It appears as though there has been a shift in our commitment to the health of the men and women who served this nation. These ideas connect to the overall ideas of the unit because it provides greater insight on challenges that patients and medical professionals experience when coping with cognitive health concerns. I do not have any personal experience associated with PTSD; however, the problem that I find in this article is that it suggests the effects of trauma which causes PTSD can be measured by a universal criteria. For example, I believe this research should consider that each individual has a unique level of tolerance to trauma which may cause them to respond in varying degrees of severity. Additionally, a patient’s inability to accurately express their symptoms may play a major factor which is causing this disparity. I recommend that further research should be conducted to

The freedoms Americans enjoy come at a price; brave military men and women often foot the bill. Many men and women pay with their lives; others relive the sights, sounds, and terror of combat in the form of PTSD. Several causes and risk factors contribute to the development of PTSD. Combat-related PTSD appears slightly different than traditional PTSD. History tells of times when soldiers diagnosed with PTSD were viewed as “weak.” Resources have not always been available to struggling soldiers. The adverse symptoms of PTSD on soldiers and their families can be crippling.

For many years, the VA has offered health care to the men and women who have surrendered a large part of their lives to protect our nation. The VA has made great stride in providing specialized services to veterans such as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Military Sexual Trauma (MST), and Mental Health treatment. In fact, the VA is leading the field on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) research, but now that many of our men and women are returning home from war, the commitment that the VA made to provide accessible health services and a smooth transition from military life back to civilian life to these heroes and their dependents are not being granted in a timely manner. Studies show that suicide among veterans is the number one leading cause of death in the United States and

According to Connor, Jones, Watts, Shiner, and Stecker (2013), “[o]nly about one quarter of active duty troops with psychiatric disorders actually receive treatment services” (p. 280).These researchers conducted a study using a qualitative analysis method by means of an intensive cognitive-behavioral telephone interview lasting approximately forty-five to fifty minutes. The participants consisted of approximately 300 service members who were recruited within a three year time frame, beginning in November 2009 and ending in January 2012.  The makeup of the participants included: 84% percent male, 67% Caucasian, 13% African Americans, and 9% Latinos. The sample identified participants from forty-eight to fifty states including veterans from all branches of military service. Research findings revealed four primary reasons veterans do not seek treatment for PTSD symptoms: concerns about treatment (40%), emotional readiness for treatment (35%), stigma (16%), and logical issues (8%) (p. 282-283). Overall, the research concludes that if there is an increase in veterans seeking treatment for PTSD after serving military time then the primary care physician should emphasize to the veterans upfront certain expectations. These expectations include

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (commonly known as PTSD) is an important issue associated with military soldiers. The primary focus of this paper will be on the causes of PTSD and the effects it has on returning soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will attempt to elaborate on the soldiers' experiences through my own experiences in combat both in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will explain what PTSD is, look at the history of PTSD, how people get it, and differences of PTSD between men and women, and treatment options.

Integrated treatment programs along with evidence supporting its effectiveness are later brought up in this article, along with recent policy changes from the Department of Veteran Affairs predicting future positive outcomes of PTSD/SUD treatment.

Memories of war are like poison in the minds of the broken soldiers calling for help, only to find out that their voices have become a distant echo. Their words lost in the society of the land they've slaved to protect, robbed of the aid, and crippled by their illness. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), became a documented mental disorder in 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association (APA) added PTSD to the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For about 30+ years, since the Vietnam war began, veterans have experienced the pain of this ailment. Human beings experience PTSD in varying degree, but often we associate it with war. Since the recognition of PTSD as an illness, the government has failed

Many veterans are still bothered by the painful memories of wartime. In fact, some veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms 50 years after serving in the war. There are many symptoms that people may experience if they have post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of those symptoms include losing interest in activities, being startled easily, nightmares and feeling like one is experiencing the event again.

Lunney, Schnurr and Cook, (2014) compared the severity of PTSD symptoms in treatment-seeking older and younger U.S. veterans with PTSD. The study uses a wide number of participants, which provides credibility to the research and can be relied upon on information regarding the effective treatment of PTSD. The researchers

If veterans do struggle with PTSD after they return from combat the Department of Veterans Affairs, a governmental agency that helps struggling veterans recover, offers two treatments. Studies have been done to see if one of the therapies is more effective than the other. There is not yet evidence that one therapy is better than the other. Cognitive processing therapy, CPT, helps by giving the vet a new way to deal with the maladaptive thoughts that come with PTSD. It also comforts them in gaining a new understanding of the traumatic events that happened to them. One of the other benefits of CPT is that it assists the person in learning how these disturbing events change the way they look at everything in life and helps them cope with that (“PTSD: National”). The second newer option of the two is prolonged exposure therapy, which is repeated exposure to these thoughts, feelings, and situations (“Most PTSD”). This type of therapy is now a central piece in the VA’s war on PTSD. “The problem with prolonged exposure is that it also has made a number of veterans violent, suicidal, and depressed, and it has a dropout rate that some researchers put at more than 50 percent, the highest dropout rate of any PTSD therapy that has been widely studied so far,”(“Trauma Post”). Both of the therapies are proven to reduce the symptoms but both have extremely high drop out rates and low follow through. It

PTSD research is incredibly important, many Americans are affected by PTSD, so the research on how to help deal with and treat it is crucial. “An estimated 7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives, with women twice as likely as men to develop PTSD. About 3.6 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 54 (5.2 million people) have PTSD during the course of a given year. This represents a small portion of those who have experienced at least one traumatic event; 60.7% of men and 51.2% of women reported at least one traumatic event” (The Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, 2007). 7.8% of Americans will experience PTSD in their lifetime, that’s 18.8 million people who