Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Department of Veterans Affairs Unveils Its Online Veterans Employment Toolkit

Excerpt from: Southeast ADA Center (click for full article)

 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has released an online Veterans Employment Toolkit aimed at helping employers, managers and supervisors, human resource professionals, and employee assistance program providers support employees who are Veterans or members of the Reserve or National Guard to increase Veterans' retention of employment and facilitate their success in the workplace. The online toolkit provides information about the value Veterans bring to the workplace, material describing the military experience and culture, common challenges Veterans may experience in readjusting to civilian life, and how to support individuals in that transition.

The toolkit also addresses how to offer help to Veterans with disabilities including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The Veterans Employment Toolkit also includes resources for Veterans who want to obtain employment, learn how to make important career decisions, and excel in the workplace.

5 Myths and Misconceptions about Children and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Excerpt from: Friendship Circle Blog (click for full article)

 

PTSD in children is real. So are myths and misconceptions about this mental illness. Because they are so prevalent, many people are ignorant of or deny the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in kids.

This article, the second in an ongoing series, examines the following commonly held myths and misconceptions about PTSD in children:

1. Only soldiers get PTSD.
2. It’s not PTSD. It’s bad parenting.
3. Kids don’t remember what happened when they were babies.
4. Newborns don’t feel pain.
5. A fetus can’t experience trauma.

A Child of Trauma Will Get a Service Dog

Excerpt from: Oregon Live (click for full article)

 

Psychiatric Service Dogs are invaluable to persons with invisible disabilities such as post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, etc. PSD's are afforded their place in a person's daily life under The Americans With Disabilities Service Act.

Many different kinds of people suffer from post traumatic stress, and many different things cause post traumatic stress. Yet, through all this diversity, there is one common thread among persons with PTSD: The inability to experience, elicit, or be moved by comfort. Soothing. Nurturing, Peace. Joy.

Children go through this, too, not just adults. Children who suffer from post traumatic stress have often been abused. Daily life with friends, school, community and family routines are often fraught with worry, hypervigilence, anxiety, isolation, sleep problems, nightmares, inability to trust and engage in nurturing relationships. These kids find it hard to have fun, to explore, to try new things. They often have a hard time concentrating and sometimes in despair just cannot, cannot be soothed.

Guidelines for service animals

Excerpt from: South Coast Today (click for full article)

 

When I retired from the Yarmouth Police Department in 2001 after a line-of-duty injury that left me with severe chronic pain and a diagnosis of PTSD, I decided to train a dog to help me adjust to my new life. I was given a black Lab puppy by a Yarmouthport breeder and named her "Paxil" because I knew she would make me happy.

Paxil provides physical assistance by picking up items I drop, fetching phones, helping me climb stairs, telling me when to take my pain medications, opening and closing doors, tugging off jackets and shoes, operating light switches, and even taking the clothes out of the dryer and putting them on the counter for me to fold.

She provides psychiatric assistance by alerting me to people approaching from behind, waking me from nightmares, creating a furry comfort zone in crowds and distracting me with a paw in my lap or a nose in my face.

Family Members Of Combat Vets At Risk For ‘Secondary’ PTSD Symptoms

Excerpt from: The Inquisitr (click for full article)

 

Post traumatic stress disorder can be debilitating for many combat veterans, and a new study shows that vets with PTSD may not be the only one’s medically affected by the condition. A new study claims that partners and spouses of combat veterans with PTSD are at a higher risk for “secondary” PTSD symptoms — including high blood pressure and greater risk for cardiovascular disease.

The study, conducted at the University of Utah, monitored two groups of military veterans and their spouses during and after a “disagreement task” in a clinical environment. Researchers compared the emotional and physiological responses of the couples. One of the groups consisted of veterans previously diagnosed with PTSD, the other group — which served as the control group — did not have PTSD or related symptoms.

The study ultimately showed that the female partners and spouses of veterans with PTSD had even greater increased in blood pressure than the combat veterans themselves. The couples in the PTSD group also showed increased heart rates.

The findings suggest that the partners and spouses of combat veterans with PTSD are at risk for similar health-related consequences as their diagnosed partners.

Forging ahead – Recovery after Traumatic and Acquired Injuries Forging ahead – Recovery after Traumatic and Acquired Injuries

Excerpt from: Disability Blog (click for full article)

 

Many people with brain/blast injuries, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other acquired injuries can feel isolated – either from cognitive difficulties, troubles keeping pace with daily life, lack of focus or just not being able to engage in the same lifestyle they used to. Such isolation not only inhibits a person’s recovery, but also takes a toll on their emotional state. It discourages friends and relationships, marginalizes enjoyment and inhibits professional aspirations.

As a result, many people with injuries or disabilities refrain from enjoying life or impacting society with the zeal and passion that they once had. PTSD can crush a person’s spirits, scars can make people feel trapped within themselves and the loss of a limb can make a person feel incomplete. My challenge to all of you out there struggling with a traumatic or acquired injury or disability is to push yourself to do things you used to enjoy before your injury – find ways to overcome physical limitations, engage your mind in intellectual discourse and discover renewed enthusiasm for life. This is your life – take it back!

Best Treatment for Childhood Trauma Remains Elusive

Excerpt from: Education Week (click for full article)

 

While many children and teens experience trauma, it's unclear what are the best ways to help them move on from the events, a new review of the research finds.

As a result, the researchers said, their work is a "call to action" to better understand how to help children heal and prevent the lingering effects of trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

"The body of evidence provides little insight into how interventions to treat children exposed to trauma might influence healthy, long-term development," they write.

Veteran Awarded Millions When VA Gives Wrong PTSD Meds

Excerpt from: Lawyers.com (click for full article)

 

A Marine sergeant who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after some harrowing experiences in Iraq won $3.7 million in his lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for not treating his illness properly and giving him the wrong medications.

While conducting door-to-door sweeps of houses in Baghdad, Marine sergeant Stanley Laskowski pushed open the door of an apartment discovering a dying child, covered in blood.

He had shot open the lock on the outside of the door, and thought that he had caused the bloody scene. In another incident, while searching through a destroyed house, he came across the remains of a six month-old baby.

Thus began the 34-year-old Marine’s downward mental spiral and post-traumatic stress disorder.

After he was discharged in 2007, he went to a local VA medical center in Pennsylvania.

According to his lawsuit, clinicians committed medical malpractice and botched his treatment by giving him the wrong medication and not offering psychotherapy to deal with nightmares, paranoia and flashbacks.

The trial was conducted in front of a judge rather than a jury.

A Truth Journal: Why Wont Pentagon Pay For PTSD Service Dogs For Returning Soldiers?

Excerpt from: Denny's News (click for full article)

 

 This new fledgling effort service dogs project in Louisiana between two vets has the potential to significantly lower the funding necessary for mental health costs for our soldiers returning from the battlefield.  Yet the Pentagon and Veteran Affairs slough it off as meaningless.  In the home for 24 hours a day, service dogs are always cheaper than years of talk and drug therapy with expensive psychiatrists on a weekly or monthly basis.

A Question of Honor, Fairness and PTSD

Excerpt from: The New York Times (click for full article)

 

A class-action lawsuit filed this month in Federal District Court in Connecticut seeks justice for Vietnam veterans with PTSD who say they have been doubly victimized. They were given other-than-honorable discharges for bad behavior — like going AWOL, taking drugs and disobeying orders — that they link to their untreated disorder. Though PTSD was not identified until 1980, the plaintiffs argue that the military has unfairly refused to consider their PTSD diagnoses when they seek retroactively to upgrade their discharges. They say it is reasonable to conclude that those with service-connected PTSD began suffering its ill effects while still in uniform.

The lawsuit was brought against the military branches by an Army veteran, John Shepherd Jr., and the Vietnam Veterans of America on behalf of possibly tens of thousands of veterans. Mr. Shepherd’s legal team, the Yale Law School veterans’ legal clinic, analyzed decisions by the Army Board of Corrections for Military Records from 2003 to 2012, finding stark evidence of disparate treatment of veterans seeking discharge upgrades. The board approved upgrades at an overall rate of 46 percent, but requests from Vietnam-era veterans claiming PTSD were nearly always denied (of about 145 PTSD-related applications, the board approved two). This “near-categorical refusal” to approve such claims, the lawsuit says, willfully ignores medical evidence that could explain misconduct.