PTSD News

The US Defense Department is spending $1.3 million to study what makes certain military families resilient, in an effort to build more effective reintegration programs for service men and women returning from deployment, according to a press release.

Healing touch therapy and guided imagery reduced posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptoms in returning combat-exposed military personnel, according to study results.

Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder who were also struggling with substance use disorders faced a higher risk for death, according to new study results published online. The association was particularly pronounced in younger veterans, including those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Adolescent girls, college women and household-residing adult women who reported sexual revictimization were at nearly a 50% greater risk for lifetime posttraumatic stress disorder, according to study results published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Repeated exposure to violent images related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the Iraq War was associated with greater posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and acute stress, according to a University of California, Irvine study appearing in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the US Department of Veterans Affairs to expand suicide prevention efforts and mental health and substance abuse treatment services for veterans and their families.

Patients who received an integrated treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder and substance dependence, besides usual treatment, experienced improvement in PTSD symptom severity compared with patients who received usual treatment only, according to study results published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Military personnel who receive concussions from blast or blunt trauma may also show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to University of Pittsburgh researchers.

Among couples in which one partner was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, a disorder-specific couple therapy was effective in reducing PTSD symptoms vs. those placed on a wait list for the therapy, according to new research published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Breakthroughs in new technology have led to the development of a computer simulation program allowing clinicians to train with virtual human patients, according to research presented at the 2012 American Psychological Association’s annual meeting.