PTSD: A National Health Crisis

Successfully integrating a soldier back into civilian life requires providing him or her with trauma evaluation services such as thorough psychiatric assessments and examination of post-traumatic stress symptoms, which include anxiety, nightmares, change in eating pattern or sleeping pattern, fear of leaving the house, inability to carry out job responsibilities, fear of public places, and startling at loud noises, to name just a few.

However, statistics show that mental health screenings of returning troops has little to no effect on their actually receiving services.

Here are a few startling statistics:

• Lifetime occurrence of PTSD in combat veterans is 10 to 30 percent.

• In the past year alone, the number of diagnosed cases in the military has increased by 50 percent over the previous year.

• Studies show that one in every five troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has PTSD.

• It is estimated that there are currently 300,000 American veterans of the Iraq war struggling with PTSD.

• Troops that served two, three and even four tours of duty were dramatically more at risk due to increased stress levels.

What we have learned about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has raised our consciousness about these concerns also among people who have experienced repeated incidents of medical illnesses as well. People with on-going medical issues, cancer recurrences, or other needs for repeated surgery are also at higher risk of PTSD.