The Best Way To Help Veterans Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Is To Quit Smoking

The Best Way To Help Veterans Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Is To Quit Smoking.
Combining post-traumatic ictus turmoil care with smoking cessation is the best way to help such veterans stop smoking, a new burn the midnight oil reports. In the study, Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers randomly assigned 943 smokers with PTSD from their wartime putting into play into two groups: One group got mental robustness care and its participants were referred to a VA smoking cessation clinic. The other group received integrated care, in which VA mentally ill health counselors provided smoking cessation healing along with PTSD treatment. Vets in the integrated care group were twice as likely to quit smoking for a prolonged while as the group referred to cessation clinics, the study reported.

Both groups were recruited from outpatient PTSD clinics at 10 VA medical centers. Researchers verified who had resign by using a probe for exhaled carbon monoxide as well as a urine test that checked for cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. Over a consolidation period of up to 48 months between 2004 and 2009, they found that forty-two patients, or nearly 9 percent, in the integrated supervision group quit smoking for at least a year, compared to 21 patients, or 4,5 percent, in the unit referred to smoking cessation clinics.

And "Veterans with PTSD can be helped for their nicotine addiction," said clue study author Miles McFall, skipper of post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle. "We do have true treatments to help them, and they should not be afraid to ask their trim care provider, including mental health providers, for assistance in stopping smoking". The scrutinize appears in the Dec. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The investigation is "a major step forward on the road to abating the previously overlooked epidemic of tobacco dependence" plaguing forebears with mental illness, according to Judith Prochaska, an associate professor in the branch of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco, who wrote an accompanying editorial. People with conceptual health problems or addictions such as alcoholism or substance abuse tend to smoke more than those in the general population. For example, about 41 percent of the 10 million race in the United States who be paid mental health treatment annually are smokers, according to background information in the article.

Increased Risk Of Suicide Among Veterans With Bipolar Disorder

Increased Risk Of Suicide Among Veterans With Bipolar Disorder.
Military veterans with psychiatric illnesses are at increased danger for suicide, says a novel study. The greatest peril is among males with bipolar disorder and females with substance malign disorders, according to the researchers at the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Healthcare System and the University of Michigan. Overall, bipolar muddle (the least common diagnosis at 9 percent) was more strongly associated with suicide than any other psychiatric condition.

The researchers examined the psychiatric records of more than three million veterans who received any breed of protection at a VA facility in 1999 and were still alive at the beginning of 2000. The patients were tracked for the next seven years.

During that time, 7684 of the veterans committed suicide. Slightly half of them had at least one psychiatric diagnosis. All of the psychiatric conditions included in the scan - depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, fabric imprecation disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and other ache disorders - were associated with increased risk of suicide.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease.
Veterans torment from post-traumatic make a point of disorder, or PTSD, appear to be at higher chance for heart disease. For the first time, researchers have linked PTSD with severe atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), as sober by levels of calcium deposits in the arteries. The condition "is emerging as a significant jeopardy factor," said Dr Ramin Ebrahimi, co-principal investigator of a scrutiny on the issue presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago. The authors are hoping that these and other, alike findings will prompt doctors, particularly primary regard physicians, to more carefully screen patients for PTSD and, if needed, follow up aggressively with screening and treatment.

Post-traumatic focus on disorder - triggered by experiencing an event that causes intense fear, helplessness or angst - can include flashbacks, emotional numbing, overwhelming guilt and shame, being unquestionably startled, and difficulty maintaining close relationships. "When you go to a doctor, they ask questions about diabetes, peak blood pressure and cholesterol," said Ebrahimi, who is a research scientist at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration Center. "The target would be for PTSD to become part of routine screening for love disease risk factors".

Although PTSD is commonly associated with war veterans, it's now also thoroughly linked to people who have survived traumatic events, such as rape, a severe accident or an earthquake, pour or other natural disaster. The authors reviewed electronic medical records of 286,194 veterans, most of them manful with an average age 63, who had been seen at Veterans Administration medical centers in southern California and Nevada. Some of the veterans had keep on been on active duty as far back as the Korean War.

Researchers also had access to coronary artery calcium CT research images for 637 of the patients, which showed that those with PTSD had more calcium built up in their arteries - a danger factor for heart disease - and more cases of atherosclerosis. About three-quarters of those diagnosed with PTSD had some calcium build-up, versus 59 percent of the veterans without the disorder. As a group, the veterans with PTSD had more taxing contagion of their arteries, with an average coronary artery calcification sitting duck of 448, compared to a score of 332 in the veterans without PTSD - a significantly higher reading.

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences.
Soldiers who experience submissive brain injuries from blasts have long-term changes in their brains, a meagre new study suggests. Diagnosing mild brain injuries caused by explosions can be challenging using prevailing CT or MRI scans, the researchers said. For their study, they turned to a unique type of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging. The technology was used to assess the brains of 10 American veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who had been diagnosed with modest traumatizing brain injuries and a comparison group of 10 people without brain injuries.

The average occasion since the veterans had suffered their brain injuries was a little more than four years. The researchers found that the veterans and the resemblance group had significant differences in the brain's white matter, which consists mostly of signal-carrying nerve fibers. These differences were linked with publicity problems, delayed memory and poorer psychomotor examination scores among the veterans. "Psychomotor" refers to movement and muscle ability associated with intellectual processes.