The "pedifit" comment and one other do make a good point. Being made to wear one is going to feel like being labeled as dangerous or crazy to returning veterans.

I also agree with the comments that this is a pretty lame approach to dealing with the issue - assuming that's what they are really trying to detect.

Along with PTSD, a large number of vets who've "had their bell rung" by explosions have undetected brain damage that may take a while to manifest. The symptoms the sensor IS monitoring would definitely go a long ways towards helping someone who is alone and in trouble.

Posted by: Chris at February 29, 2008 6:09 PM

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Posted by: torture comix at June 17, 2006 6:21 AM

I completely agree with all that's been said about the importance of our returning troops receiving the best possible screening & treatment for PTSD. It should be screened for & treated like any other potentially lethal health issue. That being said, I have to disagree that new technology (especially the type described here)is going to be a reliable diagnostic tool. It might work as well as guessing!
That's great if someone finds a reliable diagnostic tool or test to identify PTSD and it's subsets of conditions, but I wouldn't use it anywhere but the telemetry floor as a heart monitor. (Only as a back-up)
There are exponentially complex variables in the how, when and why PTSD symptoms manifest themselves. They appear enough to seek advice or treatment in as many as every three combat veterans while never affecting some with identical extreme trauma and exposure time. So, something that is basically no more than a monitor of the most basic vital signs (as shown above) can't possibly detect non-physical symptoms, variable combinations and then assertain any kind of accurate and/or definitive diagnosis. There is more to PTSD symptoms than increased heartrate, respirations, blood pressure, tempreture and even a sudden change in equilibrium leading to a loss of balance. The latter alone has so many possible causes that PTSD is unlikely to be considered in the initial work-up even if there is a known history of the condition. This process of elimination and effective treatment is even more challenging since Post Traumatic Stress still holds the stigma of a psychological condition despite the numbers of vets, civillians, women, men and children affected by it.

Diagnosis takes a qualified professional physician's trust and practiced questioning in acquiring a detailed medical and psychological history of the patient, including the beginning of the patient's signs and symptoms, alterations in behavior, lifestyle or emotional changes noted to occur in concurrence with the symptoms. If these are all negative responses and physical causes have been ruled out through CT scans, & lab work etc...Then several theraputic sessions may be prescribed to determine if a past or even recent event is inducing the stress necessary to alter the chemical actions of the brain. This action is quite obvious as the patient will, if triggered, react physically, emotionally and psychologically to an old traumatic experience as if it were currently occuring in the present. The trigger can seem innocent, may often change and likely have no conscious connection to the original incident This is the essense of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as explained in the briefest of terms. The reason for this simplistic description is that without diagnosis and treatment a patient can and usually will continue to relive the original traumatic events with even greater fear and cortical-mediated (chemical) stress increases. Over time, this can lead to addiction, alcoholism and even death without the assistance of the prior two. An increasing loss of function between episodes in humans becomes noticible due to both fear of new flash backs and a lack of chemicals that normally stimulate the brain and energize the body after they have been depleted by numerous emotional, traumatic & physical repititions. PTSD can occur decades after the initial exposure to trauma. It has been known to lead to suicide in those so desperate to stop the intensly real terror, pain and hypervigilence that repeats without end. Treatment involves mild anti-depressents and sedative-hypnotics such as sleeping aids as well as continued therapy until the patient can recall and discuss past triggering incidents without physically reliving them. This is a form of slow exposure over time until the mind is no longer sensitive to the trigger.

One one final note... Because I loathe academics who have never been anywhere but behind a desk at least as much as y'all do if not more, let me give you a sample of my Been There & Done That Resume as it pertains to this PTSD speech of mine.

I developed PTSD nearly 20 years after several sexual assaults as a young child. My signifigant other, a career soldier began to experience symptoms after his fourth combat tour. What I didn't expect was to see the disorder present itself very differently in each of us. While some symptoms were the same, they tended to be less physical for me and instead were more cerebral, emotional and mood affecting. (Mood Swings doesn't begin to cover it, trust me)
We have both experienced numerous nightmares with his being a bit more like night terrors since the memories are so recent while mine just wake me up terror striken until I can remind myself where and when I am. His symptoms are not obvious unless you are trained to look for them. Even I don't see them all as he tends to tuck those moments away in a nice safe place as soon as he feels them coming. But now and then, I have seen him relive past events, mostly in dreams that are like listening to someone else instead of the gentle guy I know. Now before anyone thinks they can tuck this stuff away like I implied...YOU CAN'T!!!! It WILL come back to you when you least expect it and the longer you wait the harder it is to recover. So know that both myself and my soldier are talking.
We are receiving excellent treatment that includes talking with therapists who have specialized in the study of and/or personally experienced events that led to PTSD in their own lives. Like us, and most folks they had a severe absence of emotional trauma coping skills. We are learning them now and since we both have to turn them on and off like a switch for our professions it's a little frustrating having to think about it. Bottom Line: We are both OK and WAY better than we were before. There is help out there, even if you have to fight the VA, the pentagon and the CIC...it's worth it!

Posted by: Fallen Angel at March 28, 2006 10:10 AM

Good Morning Folks,

To "TomCatBoy", I know I was just trying to shake things up a little, it's been to quiet around here as of late.

To Charles, it's clear that your understanding of PTSD is somewhat limited. The first item I would challenge is the diferentation you insist that exists between a "Conscripts" and volunteers, as far as I know the human brain makes no differfation of how someone entered military service.

Although the Physiology of what happens with in the brain to trigger what we have come to call PTSD is not fully understood, it is thought that PTSD is the reaction of NORMAL people to an admornal event or a stressful series of events.

Combat is not the only stressor of PTSD, assault, rape, psychological trama are also triggers of the kind of behavior that we call PTSD.

The Behavior signs of PTSD are varied, substence abiuse, sucide, marrage failures, criminal activity are some but not all indicators of this problem. The prevailing culture of the U.S. Military makes screening for PTSD nearly impossable, if a soldier comes forward while still in service he/she has effectivly ended his/her military career.

The irony here is that many of the NCO's and Officers who would discriminate against anyone who ask for help with PTSD while still in are among the first to try and game the V.A. system after they get out for a PTSD disability.

It is to the credit of the V.A. that most of these "GoldBricks" don't make it through the extensive screening that is done for a PTSD disability.

It is clear what the Bush Administration is trying to do with the "Dog Collars" is to limit future libality for PTSD claims. PTSD can not show itself for decades in some cases.

It's all about the money, Veterans are a cost of going to war that the U.S. Government has been relucant to pay since the American Revolution.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Posted by: Byron Skinner at February 26, 2006 3:55 PM

"Treating soldiers returning form a war zone the same as pedifites and other hight risk crinimals is an outrage."

While I fail to believe how wearing a collar would make you some sort of 'pedifite', it's likely that the collar these guys will be wearing will be different from those that convicts wear. For starters, pedophiles and criminals will want to /hide/ theirs. Perhaps theirs will be orange and have more strobe lights and skulls on it.

The better solution is a sensor that goes on a wristband to a control box on a carrycase, like with iPods or diabetes sensors.

As for Audie Murphy, he only had problems like pointing a gun at his soon-to-be-ex, nightmares and eventual addiction to whatever drug he was prescribed to treat his problems.

"The solution to future PTSD problems is to spread the burden of combat around to more members of society instead of the few that currently being psychologically burned out by returned trips to Afghanistan and Iraq."

Assuming that the percentage of a group that gets PTSD remains constant, increasing the number in that group at a constant percentage would increase the amount of people who get it, would it not? A random number pulled gives a 15.2 percent number for men who served in RVN (479,000 out of 3,140,000 men who served in Vietnam, psychcentral.com).

A article off of USATODAY.com states "Of the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged from service, 12,422 have been in VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms associated with PTSD." This is around 5.089%. Both figures will have under-reporting, since we have no mechanism of detecting PTSD (which is what this blog post is about, no?)

Both were counterinsurgencies against a fairly robust foe. If everything were equal, one could say that the use of conscripts may have skewed the PTSD rates. Being drafted to fight in a foreign land (whether you agree with the war or not is irrelevant) against your wishes is bound to produce psychological stresses, moreso than a person who signs up on their own free will. It's the same idea behind why we pay workers: "happy" people do their job the best, and not everyone can function or cope in combat, and "spreading the burden" will push it onto the people who knew they couldn't hack it, only to discover that they were correct. If throwing the general population into a war increases the percentage of people who experience PTSD, it must also increase the number of people who experience PTSD. So instead of spreading the burden, you're just making it bigger.

The collar thing is definitely an indignity, but the fact that people try to deny that they have PTSD or try to face it on their own and then get wiped out is bad publicity for DoD and hurts recruiting prospects. Besides, would you rather play Russian roulette with people?

As far as the minimum days before snapping, that's also dependent on population. Again, the conscript argument plays into this. In any case, most PTSD accounts describe particular events that lead to the PTSD. It is not a function of time. It is a function of how bad the war is. The mean days before PTSD event is a function of how bad the war is and the probability of particularly traumatizing events occuring. You could get PTSD in your first /week/ in country, or you could dodge the bullet and not be traumatized to the point of recurring nightmares and self-destructive behavior.

Posted by: Charles at February 25, 2006 5:01 PM