Posttraumatic stress disorder

In your opinion, is the government doing enough regarding the diagnosis/treatment of mental illness and PTDS for our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. (2-3 pages) No, I don’t believe that the U. S. Government is serving the populace in the most diligently way possible. Today which is different from the service people of even my father’s era? In his day back in 1946 WWII had just ended. Though women were on the front lines as nurses they weren’t there as a moving part of the military, flying planes, driving tanks, on board of ships to bearing a weapon.

Times are a changing! Poor grammar yes but that was the way that phrase goes. Now today also gays and Lesbians are allowed to be “Out and proud”! We were always there just now we have a voice and a Right to openly serve. We have always been in the military defending our neighbors. Now like the melting pot that holds all the different variations that can cause mental anguish that allows PTSD to rear its ugly head it seems the variations are un-limited. Now some emotions might be stirred by hatred within the units in the field wielded toward their fellow fighting commandants’.

I’d not sure but I would imagine that during Korea and Vietnam women made up maybe only a slight population of the MASH (Mobile Ambulance Surgery Hospital)Bombs bursting around them as well as our poor wounded soldiers can be added to other outward disturbances that can cause PTSD in the Medical Corps. Women who were nurses, in the Civil War, “Clara Barton”, one of the well known historic nurses that changed for the better care of our battled heroes. Stress is a killer also a side effect of PTSD, suicide. There is a story of two sisters (twins) that both were aboard the sister ship of the Titanic called the Lusitania.

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The Lusitania was used as a hospital ship in WWI. It carried the wounded, the near death and in some cases the dead. Screams and the smell of the infections haunted one of the sisters to take her life by leaping to her watery death. Her sister’s courage weighed heavy upon the sister who lived till the end of the second trip home from France where the injured boarded. Upon arriving home she resigned and went about her life; unfortunately the sounds of the ship and the pain of her missing sister was I guess you might say the death of her.

Her health fell into ruins and her days were marked, she never wed and died before she was 50. According to The US Department of Veterans Affairs (Affairs, 2009), PTSD is defined as “an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. [ (Affairs, 2009) ]A traumatic event is something horrible or scary that you see or that happens to you.

During this event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. [ (Affairs, 2009) ]You may feel afraid or feel you have no control over what is happening. [ (Affairs, 2009) ]PTSD from combat is not always acknowledged by the individual suffering from it because of embarrassment, fear of being medically discharged, lack of understanding about what is happening to them, and a variety of other reasons. [ (Affairs, 2009) ]As a person suffers through this disorder without having a proper medical diagnosis or understanding, their life may become very difficult to cope with. [ (Affairs, 2009) ]

The exact rate of PTSD in women veterans is unknown. (Iowa, 2007)Studies conducted after the Gulf War concluded that female service members were more likely than their male counterparts to develop PTSD. Iowa, 2007)This is consistent with the 2 to 1 ratio of female to male PTSD sufferers in the general population. (Iowa, 2007) Women are seeking help due to both war trauma and victimization by their peers. (Iowa, 2007) Military sexual trauma is the term used by the VA to refer to a variety of sexual offenses ranging from verbal sexual harassment to assault and rape. (Iowa, 2007)

The Veterans Health Care Act of 1992 authorized new and expanded services for women veterans including outreach and counseling services for sexual trauma incurred while serving on active duty. Iowa, 2007) Treatment of PTSD in women who have served in combat is in its infancy. (Iowa, 2007)A treatment intervention known as “Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE)” is being used by the VA along with a cognitive approach. (Iowa, 2007)PE therapy gradually exposes the client to images of the threatening experience and has the client repeatedly recount his or her traumatic (Iowa, 2007)memories.

Presently, 600 therapists are being trained in these approaches for treatment of female veterans with combat trauma. Iowa, 2007) Women’s Veterans Program Managers are now being placed at VA medical centers across the country. (Iowa, 2007)There are also programs for women who are homeless and those who are at risk of becoming homeless. (Iowa, 2007) I think that time will either be for our advantage as a country and a lesson learned allowing us to implement devices that will help our heroes as they make their journey inwardly and outwardly homeward bound. So they can sleep at night without worries of the war and the things that dominated days and nights while defending America.

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