Army Mental-Health Care a Priority | LONDON HEALTH ZONE

Caring for minds torn by war is as important as treating physical wounds, but significant challenges exist in providing that care, said Secretary of the Army John McHugh, after visiting this post Tuesday.

McHugh, who picked Fort Bliss for his first official tour since his appointment about eight weeks ago, came to express his support for families. He put his signature on an "Army Family Covenant" that originally was signed by his predecessor, Pete Geren, in 2007.

"In all candor and in all seriousness, I've seen one of the premier Army posts," McHugh told reporters after the signing ceremony. The same obstacles to providing mental-health care at Fort Bliss exist in every community, he added.

"Mental-health care is a field in which we are challenged at virtually every post," McHugh said. "Mental-health care providers are a very unique commodity, a very unique professional line, and the Army, like communities and like the other (military) services, is struggling to come up to the necessary levels of manpower."

McHugh said the hiring of a child psychologist at Fort Bliss is progress. He also spoke of resilience training that teaches soldiers how to deal with stress.

"Clearly the steps we've taken thus far, our comprehensive soldier fitness program where we're trying to put mental fitness and mental health on a par ... with physical fitness is a good step in the right direction," he said. "But we've got a ways to go."

McHugh called recent suicide data released by the Army "extraordinarily troubling."

As of Monday, the Army has identified 140 soldiers thought to have died from self-inflicted wounds so far in 2009, according to an Associated Press report. That is the same number of confirmed suicides for all of 2008.

That number represents about 24.6 suicides per 100,000 soldiers based on the current authorized strength of the Army. The national suicide rate in 2006 was 10.9 per 100,000 people, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the ratio does not take into account that the Army is predominantly male. The CDC estimates that four times as many males as females die by suicide.

The National Institute of Mental Health is beginning a five-year study of the problem, McHugh said. Researchers have agreed to share any identified causes or better approaches so they can be implemented as quickly as possible, he said.

And the Army already is working on some things it believes will make a difference, McHugh said.

Ensuring that soldiers get two years at home for every year deployed will make a difference, he said. He acknowledged that current deployment cycles have made that difficult.

Angela Gonzalez works as a family readiness support assistant in a Fort Bliss brigade preparing to deploy. Her job is to help family members.

"When I started, I was one of four here," Gonzalez said. "It's been almost three years since I started, and now there are 30 of us."

Neglecting families creates distractions for soldiers who must be focused when they are training or working in combat zones, Gonzalez said.

McHugh's signing of the family covenant was more than ceremonial, said Col. Christopher Cavoli, the brigade's commander.

"He is showing he is dedicated to the Army priorities of supporting the soldiers who have been under a little stress in the last few years," Cavoli said. His soldiers do not know exactly when they will leave or where they will land, but they are training for war.

"As we look at the data, we know that we haven't hit upon the answer," McHugh said of the branch's growing mental-health concerns.

"This is something we've been struggling with and we're going to continue to keep highest on our agenda in the days and months ahead."

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Source: http://www.embilipitiya.info/2011/08/army-mental-health-care-priority.html

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America's deadliest day in Afghanistan: 4 lessons (The Week)

New York ? Nearly two dozen members of America's Navy SEAL Team 6 are killed when their helicopter goes down. What does the devastating loss say about the war?

Thirty American servicemen, including 22 members of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, were killed on Saturday, when their Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in mountainous eastern Afghanistan. (Seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter were also killed.) It was the largest loss of American life in a single incident since the war began nearly 10 years ago. The SEAL-led team's mission: To aid a group of Army Rangers who'd become locked in a fierce firefight while chasing a Taliban leader suspected of orchestrating a string of bombings. What does this tragedy mean for the war effort? Here, four takes:

1. Our sacrifices have become too great
This tragedy only reinforces the argument that it's time to bring home all our men and women serving in Afghanistan, says Rick Rice at Wizbang. "There is no firm commitment from the top to win this thing," and fewer and fewer Americans want to stay there at all. If we don't have a strategy for victory ? and it appears we don't ? the loss of America's blood "is simply not worth it."

2. Our supposed allies may be suspect
SEAL Team 6 is "the same unit that nailed bin Laden," says Steven Hayward at Powerline. Because of the SEALs' secrecy, we'll never know whether the men who died Saturday were the same heroes who killed the al Qaeda leader, but "it seems doubtful this is a coincidence." The Pentagon shouldn't rest until it finds out "whether Bin Laden sympathizers in Pakistan's ISI, or inside the Afghan government, played some role in targeting and bringing down this crew."

3. Our presence in Afghanistan benefits the Taliban
The loss of life would perhaps be justifiable if the war was making America safer, or benefiting the Afghan people, says Medea Benjamin at The Huffington Post. But it's doing neither. The Taliban have "no interest in attacking anyone inside the United States." So when we wade into battles that kill Afghan civilians, or spend money propping up a corrupt government the people hate, we only strengthen Islamist insurgents. In fact, our presence in Afghanistan "gives the Taliban its raison d'etre."

4. Our job is nowhere near over
Remember,?U.S. commandos conduct dozens of missions just like this one every week,?says Kevin Sieff at?The Washington Post. The only difference this time was "the disastrous ending." But to Afghans, the message in this tragedy is that "NATO-led forces have yet to reverse the Taliban's momentum,"?says Tom A. Peter in The Christian Science Monitor. The truth is, "the war will likely to drag on for a long time to come."?

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20110808/cm_theweek/218069

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Age and severity of heart failure associated with impairment in verbal memory

ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2011) ? Older patients with lower rates of left ventricular ejection fraction (a measure of how well the left ventricle of the heart pumps with each contraction) appear more likely than younger patients to have significantly reduced verbal memory function, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Three decades ago, researchers began investigating the association of heart failure with cognitive decline, according to background information in the article. Thirty to 80 percent of patients with heart failure may experience some cognitive deficits. However, research seeking to clarify the correlation of cognitive impairment with decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (EF), a measurement of the severity of heart failure, has generated inconsistent results. "Conflicting evidence about the association of EF with cognitive function suggests a complex relationship between patient variables and the cardiovascular factors that influence cognition," write the authors.

Joanne R. Festa, Ph.D., from St. Luke's?-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study to investigate the relationship between age, EF and memory among patients with heart failure. The participants, all adult patients with heart failure, underwent neurocognitive assessment while being evaluated for potential heart transplantation candidacy between September 2006 and September 2008. The testing included verbal and visual memory, attention, executive functioning and self-reported depressive symptoms. Researchers also recorded participants' EF, heart failure cause, medical history, current medications and demographic information. Echocardiography was used to measure EF, which was scored at less than 30 percent or at 30 percent or greater. Age quartiles used by the researchers were 45 years or younger, 46 to 55 years, 56 to 62 years and 63 years or older.

A total of 207 participants were included in the final analysis of the study; 38 had an EF of 30 or greater, and 169 had an EF of less than 30. Stable memory function was maintained across EF levels in patients younger than 63 years, but in older patients a significant association with worse memory performance was noticed when EF was less than 30 percent. Analysis of the results demonstrated that the components of memory with which low EF had the greatest association were verbal delayed recall and recognition.

"In summary, an interaction exists between the age and EF such that older patients with low EF had significantly reduced memory, particularly verbal delayed recall and recognition," write the researchers. However, the association of low EF with "memory in these patients is not entirely explained by EF." The authors suggest further research into additional mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in patients with heart failure.

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The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by JAMA and Archives Journals.

Journal Reference:

  1. J. R. Festa, X. Jia, K. Cheung, A. Marchidann, M. Schmidt, P. A. Shapiro, D. M. Mancini, Y. Naka, M. Deng, E. R. Lantz, R. S. Marshall, R. M. Lazar. Association of Low Ejection Fraction With Impaired Verbal Memory in Older Patients With Heart Failure. Archives of Neurology, 2011; 68 (8): 1021 DOI: 10.1001/archneurol.2011.163

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/fUGOpKsEVSk/110808161134.htm

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