Posted Wednesday, December 2nd 2015 @ 12pm
Researchers at the U.T. Health Science Center told the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States at their annual meeting underway in San Antonio that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other emotional problems facing veterans of the Iraq and Afghan Wars will require care and treatment for decades, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
That’s because, according to Dr. Alan Peterson, chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine and a former Air Force lieutenant colonel who did three tours of duty in Iraq as a combat psychologist, of the nation of blast wounds and their impact on victims and survivors alike.
“Individuals who have been exposed to a blast are a group of individuals we need to monitor carefully over the next several decades,” he said. “It is the underlying cause of many type sof medical injuries, and also brain injuries and psychological health injuries.”
Dr. Peterson says blast injuries were far more widespread than in previous wars. He says Improvised Explosive Devices were a main weapon of insurgents, and he says Joint Base Balad, where he was stationed, was referred to by troops as ‘Mortar-ita-ville’ due to the prevalance of blasts caused by mortat rounds lobbed into the base.
“80% of individuals who have been injured and killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been wounded due to the effects of a blast.”
He says that is far higher than in previous warns, where gunshots were the primary cause of death and injury.
Dr. Peterson says the nature of blast wounds causes emotional and psychological problems not only for the person who is wounded, but for those who only witness the attack and those who are charged with helping the victims.
“Many people are killed, there are mutilating injuries, there is gore that occurs after a blast exposure which is far beyond anything that you could possibly prepare for,” he said.
The military surgeons are discussing the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing medical treatment which the veterans of the wars will require in the years and decades ahead.
Read more: http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-local-news-sponsored-by-five-119078/ptsd-emotional-scars-from-iraq-afghanistan-14167579/#ixzz3tNIhxkS7