...the men and women who protect us through their military service, especially those who have been deployed and risked their lives so that we can maintain the privileges afforded to us simply by living in America. Unfortunately, our country has not taken enough measures to protect and restore the mental health of the veterans who have protected us. According to Jaycox eds. and Tanielian (2008) “About One-Third of Returning Service members Report Symptoms of a Mental Health or Cognitive Condition” and approximately 19.5% of our returning veterans have experienced a probable traumatic brain injury (TBI) (p. 492). While the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Association (VA) have taken steps to meet the needs of these returning veterans, there is still much room for improvement when it comes to providing these hero’s with the mental health and neurological care that they require for a healthy life. PTSD and TBI share many symptoms, sometimes making it difficult for professionals to distinguish the cause of the symptoms, therefore, the mental health and TBI issues are often addressed together. One of the issues that our servicemen face with receiving proper treatment is that PSTD can sometimes take a year or more to surface after returning home. (National Council on Disability , 2009). The Department of Defense has designated and deployed a Mental health taskforce to research and address the needs and concerns of our military member’s psychological well being and as of 2007...
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...Leading Change: A Plan for SAMHSA’s Roles and Actions Strategic Initiative #3: Military Families Lead: Kathryn Power, Director, Center for Mental Health Services Key Facts • Approximately 18.5 percent of service members returning from Iraq or Afghanistan have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression, and 19.5 percent report experiencing a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployment.48 Approximately 50 percent of returning service members who need treatment for mental health conditions seek it, but only slightly more than half who receive treatment receive adequate care.49 The Army suicide rate reached an all-time high in June 2010.50 In the 5 years from 2005 to 2009, more than 1,100 members of the Armed Forces took their own lives, an average of 1 suicide every 36 hours.51 In 2010, the Army’s suicide rate among active-duty soldiers dropped slightly (162 in 2009; 156 in 2010), but the number of suicides in the National Guard and Reserve increased by 55 percent (80 in 2009; 145 in 2010).52 More than half of the Army National Guard members who killed themselves in 2010 had never deployed.53 In 2007, 8 percent of soldiers in Afghanistan reported using alcohol during deployment, and 1.4 percent reported using illegal drugs/substances.54 Between 2004 and 2006, 7.1 percent of U.S. veterans met the criteria for a substance use disorder.55 Mental and substance use disorders caused more hospitalizations among U.S. troops in 2009 than any other cause.56 According to an...
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...disorder(PTSD). The military have their own community of trained professionals that gives support during time being served in the military. Upon discharge there are some resources available but the ease of access is a challenge. Once a veteran has seen combat and is ready for discharge they are not given additional monitoring or treatment once they enter civilian life. It is left up to the individual to recognize they need mental support. Most of these veterans do not seek such assistance. Instead they consider this the norm and go on with their lives as they suffer in silence. The news is filled with reports of Veteran Administration systemic problems with their health care facilities and the ability to take care of combat veterans. The VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is getting increasing pressures from congress and the public regarding the faults of the system. The ability of the system to take of a veteran is poor. The PTSD patient warriors of current wars like Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from the inability to receive proper care. (Landen, 2014) Reports are finding problems in the VA system with improper scheduling of patients, and excessive waiting times. “1 in every 5 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD. Half on those veterans never seek treatment.” (Liebert & Williams , 2013 p. 227) Many veterans of today have untold stories of the past that they attempt to lock away from the world. Some of these stories lead to a variety of mental and emotional problems...
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...nursing field, we see many differing cultural diversities on a daily basis. Racial, religious, and ethnic differences are mostly easy to spot in the health care world. These differences are readily discussed in nursing education, and education is given on how to provide culturally competent care for many different backgrounds. While this is an amazing thing to have in the nursing world, my question is what about the culture of military Veterans? Veterans are typically overlooked when it comes to the concept of culturally competent care. They have their own way of thinking, own belief systems and even their own language along with the specific mental and addiction health disparities. It is important that nurses do not overlook the rising number of Veterans, and the specific care they need due to the differing culture. Culturally competent care for veterans, any vulnerabilities of the Veteran culture, standards of culturally competent care in the Veterans Administration, application of nursing theory, and solutions for providing culturally competent care for Veterans will be addressed in this paper. Culturally Competent Care and Standards The United States is widely known as the “melting pot” of the world, and that comes with many differing cultures, ethnicities, religions and race. Caring for all of these different patients in health care means that the nurse must be educated in many different cultures and how to provide care for them in a respectful and safe manner. There are...
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...confused as to the most appropriate route to take. The purpose of the article is to offer a critical review of some of the main theories and approaches to organizational change management as a way to begin managing change. Due to the complexity of the military setting, change is often looked upon as an unwanted kink in what is considered traditional processes and procedures. Military leadership responsible for successfully leading service members returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) presenting with a myriad of mental health and substance use disorders (SUD) must forgo the traditional negative stigmas associated with mental health and substance abuse services and offer a non-retributive path which leads subordinates to openly receive desperately needed services. Cameron, K. (2004). A Process for Changing Organizational Culture. The Handbook of Organizational Development. Retrieved from http://competingvalues.com/competingvalues .com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/A-Process-for-Changing-Organizational- Culture.pdf Although this article viewed well known civilian organizations that successfully implemented change, military leadership would be remiss in utilizing these common factors in not only implementing change but factors that instill by in from the top down. Today’s...
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...Military Veterans From research studies, military veterans aren’t well compensated for their service in the military. Not only are they not well compensated, there were many combat soldiers coming home with anger issues, PTSD, depression, and other psychological problems. According to research, half of the homeless individuals are military veterans not just an opinion but it’s a proven fact. Veterans are often not honored, as they should be. Why aren’t they? Another question is why aren’t our veterans not well taken care of? No health insurance for veterans First, scientific studies show that working age veterans don’t have health insurance. According to Genevieve Kenney, a senior fellow with the Urban Institute and co-author of the report...
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...Yvonne Aguirre Essay Two - PPCC English 122 “The Rise in Depression & Suicide in Veterans of the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars” In Jared Diamond’s essay “Why Do Some Societies Make Disastrous Decisions?” Diamond talks about four main points of why he believes societies make bad decisions. Diamond four main points on his reasons are as follows: “First of all, a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives. Second, when the problem does arrive, the group may fail to perceive it. Then, after they perceive it, they may fail even to try to solve it. Finally, they may try to solve it but may not succeed.” Diamond has different viewpoints as to why each particular point might have happened. Our young men and women in the Armed Forces are experiencing some very hard and traumatic experiences in our current war. It seems that the very military that is supposed to help them overcome what they have helped to create is the same military that is hurting them by not providing adequate long term medical and mental treatment. Did we not learn anything from the Gulf War and the Gulf War Syndrome? These men and women are truly hurting and it seems that the military has turned a blind eye to how serious this problem is becoming. Men and women are returning from war and are acting unlike themselves before they went over there. They are committing more crimes, from simple robbery to murder and the depression and PTSD rates have steadily gone up for...
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...Bibliography Sayers, S. L., Farrow, V. A., Ross, J., & Oslin, D. W. (2009). Family Problems Among Recently Returned Military Veterans Referred for a Mental Health Evaluation. Journal Clinical Psychiatry, Physicians Postgraduate Press, e1-e8 The authors, researchers at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, used data from 4 Mental Illness Research and the Department of Veterans Affairs. It questioned whether psychiatric symptoms were associated with family reintegration problems in returning military veterans. The study involved 199 military veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan after 2001. As a result of the study three fourths of the married/cohabiting veterans reported some type of family problems, feelings of being quest in their households. The study concluded that depression and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms were both associated with higher rates of family integration problems. Additionally, the findings suggest that mental health problems may complicate veterans’ readjustment and reintegration. It also suggests that improvements need to be addressed better treatment of psychiatric disorders with veterans by addressing family problems. Hankin, C. S., Spiro, A., Miller, D. R., Kazis, L. (1999). Mental Disorders and Mental Health Treatment Among U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient: The Veterans Health Study. American Journal of Psychiatry, Am J Psychiatry 1999; 156:1924-1930 The authors examined the self-reported...
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...Professor Rickards Criminal Justice 21 March 2024 Veteran Courts As we know, Veteran Courts are a new form of specialty courts for criminal offenders who served in the military. The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania says, “Utilizing the successful drug court model, participants come before judges regularly, receive support and guidance from veteran mentors, are supervised by specialized probation officers, and receive treatment and support from the Veterans Administration to address underlying problems often caused by post-traumatic stress disorder” (UJSP, 2). Veteran Courts are there to assist veterans who have been charged with crimes and who are struggling with addiction, mental illness, or disorders. To me, this shows...
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...read/proofread/edit your work. 3. Please make sure you address the points listed in the instruction boxes. 4. Once completed, upload the file to the appropriate link in Moodle. 5. Your proposal is a living document. We will be using and refining this document once we as the term progresses. 6. Remember – this is a DRAFT proposal at this point. As such, its contents will still need significant improvement and revisions as you use its contents in writing your capstone in MM598. 7. Submit the complete proposal via Moodle. CAPSTONE PROPOSAL MM 514 – Practical Research Name(s): | Danny Shipman | Proposed Research Topic/Title: | Do Southern Oregon Veterans Face the Same Challenges as Veterans Across the Rest of the Nation When Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life | Executive Summary: | This section essentially provides the reader of your proposal an informative abstract, giving the reader the chance to see the essentials of the proposal without having to read the details as written in the following sections. The executive summary should include a brief statement of the management dilemma and management question, the research objectives/research questions, and the benefits of your approach. You may want to write this section once you have completed the sections below. | Introduction/ Background of the Study | There were an estimated 2.5 million men and...
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...America’s Homeless Veterans We see homeless people every day. We may choose to look at them or maybe we turn away and ignore their presence. We often label them as “Losers” or “Bums”. The one thing we can’t ignore is that we seem to see more and more of them each day and we now see women among their ranks. We rarely stop to think about the persons past, careers they may have had, families that love them, or don’t love them, and we never stop to consider that a lot of these people have served in our Armed Forces. The term, “Homeless Veteran” appalls most of us because we don’t want to think that the country they served, “The United States of America”, has turned its back on these individuals. Doesn’t that imply that “We” have turned our backs on them as well? If the Government is in charge of the care of our Veterans, and we as citizens vote for the people responsible for making decisions on our behalf, isn’t this a direct reflection of us as a society? We tend to vote in favor of the politician who cuts the funding of social programs in the name of saving tax dollars without considering the consequences. There are always consequences. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, estimates the number of Homeless Veterans at roughly 50,000 on any given night while other sources place that number at roughly 130,000. I have found that all statistics given by any U.S. Government source are always extremely low, perhaps to influence public perception. The...
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...Subject: Veteran Suicide Prevention in California (Nationwide) ______________________________________________________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: “All I ever considered when I thought about suicide was the guilt I was feeling and just wanting a way out, wanting to not have those memories anymore,” said Clinton Hall, 35, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantryman and now lives in Portland, Ore. His friend and fellow soldier killed himself shortly after returning home. An epidemic is raging among us and some of us have no idea the problem sits next to the very flag of freedom we encounter throughout our day. Suicide is one of the many causes of death for American military forces. A research project in 2012 reported in Times Magazine regarding active duty members of the military, shows a surprising 349 veterans took their own lives; more than the death from combat operations that year. The Veteran Affairs Department estimates that 22 vets die by their own hand every day. For a veteran, the sound of a firework can spark a flashback of war; while shopping at the aisles of the super market, a veteran may suddenly feel the need to seek cover as it reminds him of being ambushed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The reality is that our patriots are leaving one battle and returning home to another. Some veterans feel ostracized, others are homelessness, have become drug addict,, and are unemployed. These problems relate to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a mental problem...
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...Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). Some argue the stigmatizing power behind the word disorder creates a barrier to service members and veterans seeking care for mental health needs. Supporters assert changing the name will “will reduce the stigma that stops troops from seeking treatment” (Jaffe, 2012). Retired Army General Peter Chiarelli, a major supporter of the change, argues: Calling the condition a "disorder" perpetuates a bias against the mental health illness and "has the connotation of being something that is a pre-existing problem that an individual has" before they came into the Army and "makes the person seem weak," (as cited in Sagalyn, 2012, p. 1; emphasis added) As of May 2012, 247,243 veterans were seen for potential PTSD at Veterans Health Administration facilities following their return from Iraq or Afghanistan (Veterans Administration [VA], 2012). If the “D” is replaced with and “I”, will this significantly diminish the stigma reported by General Chiarelli? I argue that the stigma is not in the name; the stigma is within and perpetuated by military culture and attitudes towards those who seek treatment for PTSD. As a service member and military mental health army sergeant, I am moved by the conviction of military leaders to take the lead in reducing the stigma of mental health care for those they command. Upon entry into the military, we are programmed to place our confidence, trust, and lives 2 in the hands of our leadership. This...
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...Case Analysis: Private, Dismissed Introduction This case takes place at the Overton Brooks VA hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. Overton Brooks recently underwent major reconstructing to create the Behavioral Medicine Programs to handle inpatient and outpatient mental health services. Patty Cohen, one of the social workers hired during the restructuring of the VA's Behavioral Medicine Program worked in the outpatient mental health clinic. Patty, diagnosed with lupus, holds her clinical licensure in both Louisiana and Texas and has experience in medical social work, hospice, home-based mental health, inpatient psych, and corrections. Sharease Jackson, who has been hospitalized numerous times since first coming to the VA in 2009 is a patient of Patty's. Sharease is a 19-year-old African American veteran who joined the army at seventeen and was discharged at the age of nineteen due to instability and suicidal attempts. After being hospitalized five times, Sharease reaches out to Patty stating it is an emergency and needed to meet now. Sharease tells Patty good-bye and makes statements such as "It's like I'm already dead." Patty assesses Sharease finding that she is enough of a risk for suicide and admits her to inpatient treatment. This time seems different than the rest where Sharease shows no emotion, no yelling and screaming about...
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...This is a research paper on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in which it explains that the treatment of this mental condition goes beyond regular mental health treatment. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: The War at Home Regina N. Chance Kwoya Fagin, Professor ENG215 Research and Writing 7 August 2010 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Takes Special Medical Care The government is awesome at getting men ready for war, but they can’t quite get them back to civilian life and a humble heart. - JUNIOR ENLISTED MARINE, POST-IRAQ After we came back, many of us were only back in body. Our souls stayed over there. – ARMY COMBAT ENGINEER, POST-IRAQ Transition can mean the big picture of how a warrior has to try to adjust back into society, but the short term is very critical, from when a warrior leaves the battlefield to when they hit the streets at home. If there’s one thing I learned from my experiences, it was that there was no transition at all. –VIETNAM VETERAN Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has become the major medical issue with our soldiers returning from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many soldiers, it is a badge of honor to have served but for most, it is a start to an endless battle of finding the courage to continue to serve or be labeled an unfit soldier for the military and useless to their family. PTSD affects not only the soldier’s way of life but the core of who the soldier is. For this...
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