Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans

Traumatic Brain Injuries Of Some Veterans.
The brains of some veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who were injured by homemade bombs show an unique model of damage, a small muse about finds. Researchers speculate that the damage - what they call a "honeycomb" pattern of broken and proud nerve fibers - might help explain the phenomenon of "shell shock". That name was coined during World War I, when trench warfare exposed troops to constant bombardment with exploding shells example. Many soldiers developed an array of symptoms, from problems with eyesight and hearing, to headaches and tremors, to confusion, desire and nightmares.

Now referred to as blast neurotrauma, the injuries have become an signal issue again, said Dr Vassilis Koliatsos, the senior researcher on the new study read more here. "Vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have been exposed to a range of situations, including blasts from improvised touchy devices IEDs ," said Koliatsos, a professor of pathology, neurology and psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

But even though the acknowledgement of shell shock goes back 100 years, researchers still be versed little about what is actually going on in the brain. For the new study, published recently in the paper Acta Neuropathologica Communications, his team studied autopsied brain tissue from five US feud veterans. The soldiers had all survived IED bomb blasts, but later died of other causes. The researchers compared the vets' mastermind tissue to autopsies of 24 settle who had died of various causes, including traffic accidents and drug overdoses.

The soldiers' brains showed a dissimilar pattern of damage to nerve fibers in key regions of the brain - including the frontal lobes, which hold the whip hand memory, reasoning and decision-making. He said the "honeycomb" motif of small lesions was unlike the damage seen in people who died from head trauma in a car accident, or those who suffered "punch-drunk syndrome" - planner degeneration caused by repeated concussions.

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences

Even Easy Brain Concussion Can Lead To Serious Consequences.
Soldiers who be reduced passive brain injuries from blasts have long-term changes in their brains, a inadequate new study suggests. Diagnosing mild brain injuries caused by explosions can be challenging using pedestal CT or MRI scans, the researchers said. For their study, they turned to a notable 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 forgiving traumatizing brain injuries and a comparison group of 10 people without brain injuries.

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

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 emphasize muddle care with smoking cessation is the best way to help such veterans stop smoking, a new consider reports. In the study, Veterans Affairs (VA) researchers randomly assigned 943 smokers with PTSD from their wartime ritual into two groups: One group got mental condition care and its participants were referred to a VA smoking cessation clinic. The other group received integrated care, in which VA batty health counselors provided smoking cessation remedying 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 skip by using a probe for exhaled carbon monoxide as well as a urine test that checked for cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine. Over a bolstering period of up to 48 months between 2004 and 2009, they found that forty-two patients, or nearly 9 percent, in the integrated trouble 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 experience study author Miles McFall, chief honcho of post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle. "We do have outstanding treatments to help them, and they should not be afraid to ask their fettle care provider, including mental health providers, for assistance in stopping smoking". The think over appears in the Dec. 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The boning up is "a major step forward on the road to abating the previously overlooked epidemic of tobacco dependence" plaguing race with mental illness, according to Judith Prochaska, an associate professor in the area of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco, who wrote an accompanying editorial. People with loony 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 subjects in the United States who notified of mental health treatment annually are smokers, according to background information in the article.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Gives A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease.
Veterans hardship from post-traumatic accent disorder, or PTSD, appear to be at higher peril for heart disease. For the first time, researchers have linked PTSD with severe atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), as uniform by levels of calcium deposits in the arteries. The condition "is emerging as a significant gamble factor," said Dr Ramin Ebrahimi, co-principal investigator of a reflect on 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 anxiety physicians, to more carefully screen patients for PTSD and, if needed, follow up aggressively with screening and treatment.

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

Although PTSD is commonly associated with war veterans, it's now also everywhere linked to people who have survived traumatic events, such as rape, a severe accident or an earthquake, inundation 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 latest been on active duty as far back as the Korean War.

Researchers also had access to coronary artery calcium CT c con images for 637 of the patients, which showed that those with PTSD had more calcium built up in their arteries - a jeopardize 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 simple affliction of their arteries, with an average coronary artery calcification provocation of 448, compared to a score of 332 in the veterans without PTSD - a significantly higher reading.

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 peril for suicide, says a unexplored study. The greatest jeopardy is among males with bipolar disorder and females with substance revile disorders, according to the researchers at the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Healthcare System and the University of Michigan. Overall, bipolar upheaval (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 typeface of concern 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 scrutiny - depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, essence manhandle disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and other angst disorders - were associated with increased risk of suicide.