Yes, Ani, There is a Santa Claus

BY PEG GRAFWALLNER, M.ED. Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make […]

PTSD, SUICIDE, & THE FAMILY

BY HALE BRADT I do not know if my father, Wilber Bradt, suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) when he came home from World War II. I do know that he committed suicide six weeks later. It is known that PTSD sufferers are at  relatively high risk for suicide and that sustained combat can lead to PTSD. But there were no overt signs he suffered from “intrusive, recurrent recollections, flashbacks, and nightmares,” as PTSD […]

Veterans / Ex-Servicemen Anxiety / Stress Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine Psychology / Psychiatry Transcendental Meditation May Reduce PTSD Symptoms, Medication Use In Active-Duty Personnel

Regular practice of Transcendental Meditation enables some active duty service members battling post-traumatic stress disorder to reduce or even eliminate their psychotropic medication and get better control of their often-debilitating symptoms, researchers report in the journal Military Medicine. The study looked at 74 active-duty service members with PTSD or anxiety disorder, often resulting from multiple deployments over multiple years, who were seeking treatment at Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center’s Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic at […]

Anxiety / Stress Veterans / Ex-Servicemen Emergency Medicine Depression Veterans and Civilian Patients At Risk Of ICU-Related PTSD Up To A Year Post Discharge

One in ten patients is at risk of having new post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related to their ICU experience up to a year post-discharge. This was the finding from a multicenter, prospective cohort research study of veterans and civilians. The research was published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. In the study “Incidence and Risk Factors for ICU-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans and […]