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Denial Healthy? Not Necessarily by: Bethany Stotts, August 28, 2008 Five academics have challenged the conventional wisdom that silence in the face of emotional trauma is an unhealthy reaction. “Contrary to common assumption, this study demonstrates that individuals who choose not to express their thoughts and feelings in the immediate aftermath of collective trauma are capable of coping successfully and in fact are more likely to do so than individuals who do express,” write five professors who hail from the University of California at Irvine, the University of Buffalo, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their research tracked...

Melancholy Serenades by: Malcolm A. Kline, June 11, 2008 Education professionals think that they have come up with a way to get middle school students to share their life experiences in a way that is both therapeutic and instructive but the exercises they have concocted may prove to be intrusive at best. “In their writer’s notebook, students draw a horizontal line across the page,” Karen D. Wood writes in the May 2008 issue of Middle School Journal. “Above the line, they note the highlights of their lives; moments that are fond memories.” “Below the line, they note the lowlights of...

BRUCE JANCIN (Denver Bureau) Article Outline • Copyright NEW YORK — Posttraumatic stress disorder and depression are extremely common a full year after hospitalization for injury and are associated with up to a nearly sixfold increased likelihood of failure to return to work, according to the largest-ever U.S. study evaluating the multiple impacts of trauma. The implications of these new findings from the National Study of Costs and Outcomes of Trauma (NSCOT) are profound. With an estimated 2.5 million hospital admissions for injury per year in the United States, the data would suggest 500,000 of these patients will have debilitating...

enlarge Magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of healthy adults more than three years after Sept. 11, 2001, shows areas that have less gray matter volume in those who were near ground zero on 9/11, compared with those who were much farther away. This is three views of the brain areas that have lower gray matter volume in the 9/11-exposed group. Notably, all of these areas (which show up brighter in this image) are associated with the processing of emotion. (Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University) ScienceDaily (Jun. 4, 2008) — Healthy adults who were close to the World Trade...

Trauma, Turmoil, Chaos, Refiner's Fires, The Redemptive Order of GOD ALONE [Open] Lack of secure ATTACHMENT the first 6 years of life—especially, imho, to a healthy loving DADDY, results in almost or truly terminal insecurities. Said insecurities trigger a lifelong [until arrested and overcome, flushed]—trigger a lifelong pattern, habit, obsession of BEING IN CONTROL of every detail of one’s life and especially one’s relationships [which, of course, causes no end of problems and never results in the security longed for—satan wins again]. And, most often, such obsessive compulsions and needs for CONTROL find a nurturing home in INSTITUTIONALIZED structure,...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Contrary to popular notions about what is normal or healthy, new research has found that it is okay not to express one's thoughts and feelings after experiencing a collective trauma, such as a school shooting or terrorist attack. In fact, people who choose not to express their feelings after such an event may be better off than those who do talk about their feelings, according to University at Buffalo psychologist Mark Seery, Ph.D., lead author of a study to appear in the June issue of Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The study investigated the mental and...

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 3, 2008 – The Afghan National Police Central Training Center graduated 24 police officers today from the first course for trauma-assistance personnel taught by U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen. Students with the Afghan National Police Trauma Assistance Personnel course treat a fellow policeman’s simulated wounds during the inaugural course at the ANP Central Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Three Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan Navy corpsmen from the ANP Medical Embedded Training Team here taught the eight-week course, which gives the ANP its first personnel...

3/31/2008 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- Approximately 20 deployed military doctors, U.S. civilian doctors and Iraqi doctors gathered at the Air Force Theater Hospital to share information about operations at their respective hospital facilities and discuss and how they could work to be more interoperable here March 24 and 25. The Joint Theater Trauma System conference addressed how medical staff members could improve the delivery of care, and ultimately continue to decrease morbidity and mortality in Iraq among servicemembers and civilians, said Lt. Col. (Dr.) George Costanzo, a Joint Theater Trauma System Surgeon deployed from Moody Air Force...

The Wal-Mart company health insurance plan won't seek to take other assets from a family that has lost its last court battle to keep a severely injured woman's trust fund from being seized, a company representative said. Former Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank of Jackson racked up $469,000 in medical costs after a 2000 traffic collision. In a subsequent lawsuit, GEM Transportation Inc. agreed to pay $1 million as a settlement of her claims. Debbie Shank received $417,477 from her share after legal fees; her then-husband, Jim Shank, received $200,000, and about $119,000 remained after legal bills.

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, Jan. 15, 2008 – Construction of a $92 million center for all Defense Department combat casualty care and trauma research missions began with a groundbreaking ceremony here Jan. 11. Dr. Basil Pruitt (center) laughs at a comment made by guest speaker, Maj. Gen. George Weightman, commander of U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, at the Jan. 11, 2008, groundbreaking ceremony for the Joint Center of Excellence for Battlefield Health and Trauma Research, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Photo by Elaine Wilson   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The 150,000-square-foot Joint Center of Excellence...

Scientist at Work | John Holcomb SAN ANTONIO — Since the war in Iraq began, Col. John Holcomb has been working to change the way the military takes care of its wounded. Along the way he has suffered a few dings himself. A tall medical doctor with a Southern lilt and close-cropped gray hair, Colonel Holcomb, 48, has spent his entire 27-year career in the Army, earning a reputation as one of the military’s top trauma surgeons. Since 2001, he has headed the Army’s Institute of Surgical Research, based on the campus of the Brooke Army Medical Center here. Under...

MIAMI - The trauma center's radio crackles an alert: A 34-year-old woman injured in an auto wreck is being brought in by helicopter. Parts of her scalp have been torn back, exposing her skull. Broken bones may be sticking out through the skin of her left leg. Her injuries may help save the lives of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. For two weeks, 28 Army medics, nurses, doctors and nurse anesthetists have been learning trauma medicine and teamwork under pressure at the Ryder Trauma Center at downtown Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, a place that sees such carnage it often resembles a...

Improvements Keep Coming at Iraq’s Busiest Trauma Center Corps of Engineers oversee $21 million in repairs, improvements at Ibn Sina Hospital By Norris JonesGulf Region Central DistrictU.S. Army Corps of Engineers BAGHDAD, June 4, 2007 — It’s the U.S. military’s busiest trauma center in the world. Ibn Sina Hospital, built in 1964 and located in Baghdad’s International Zone, has been operated by the U.S. Army since October 2003. It has handled more than 13,000 emergency room visits, air evacuated more than 10,000 patients, taken more than 60,000 X-rays, accomplished 14,500 surgical hours, and given more than 33,000 units of...

Just when Northfield Laboratories Inc. is on the verge of finding out whether its experimental blood substitute works well enough to submit to the Food and Drug Administration for possible approval, the regulatory climate appears to have become much tougher. Last week Northfield's primary rival in the race to get a blood substitute to market was rebuffed by advisers to the FDA, who decided against endorsing a controversial clinical trial of Biopure Corp.'s Hemopure blood substitute. The two companies are racing to develop a potentially lucrative product that can save lives in trauma situations by carrying oxygen through the body--an...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2006 – Army Spec. Crystal Davis proved her steely grit the night the up-armored wrecker she was driving in Iraq hit an improvised explosive devise. Trapped in the destroyed vehicle with her right foot nearly severed, she told her cohorts she’d hoist herself out rather than risk having them come in. “I think about it every day,” Davis told country music singer-songwriter Rockie Lynne Aug. 18, at a dinner for wounded servicemembers and their families. “Every moment that goes by a part will flash back. I tell it differently every time because I remember different things as...

A bout of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may do damage to the brain that kick-starts memory problems, scientists have discovered. Even patients who had recovered from a period of stress started to get age-related memory difficulties about a decade earlier than non-traumatized people, they report. Post-traumatic stress, a condition that can cause patients to feel physical pain on remembering a traumatic event, is known to have a number of effects on the mind and body. One of the side effects is that patients tend to be forgetful, unable to remember a story or a list of words after they've heard...

Helping Your Children Cope If Israel Is Attacked By Dr. Batya L. Ludman Israel News Agency Haifa----July 14...... Being in a sealed room or bomb shelter in Israel is not easy for an adult at the best of times, but should we have to go into our shelters today or tomorrow, how can we make this an easier experience for our children? Most children in Israel will cope very well with being in a shelter as they will be with their parents and will therefore feel secure. Assuming that parents remain calm and are in control, children will feel safe....

MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (March 10, 2006) -- Growing up in a small Pennsylvania town nestled in the Pocono Mountains and dreaming of becoming a doctor, Joe Strauss would have never predicted he would be the lead resident physician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., during one of the Marine Corps’ bloodiest battles in Iraq. Now a Navy lieutenant commander and an orthopedic surgeon, dealing with musculoskeletal injuries at the Robert E. Bush Naval Hospital, Strauss said his past experience helping wounded Marines allows him to better serve Marines and Sailors aboard...

Pro-Life groups are calling for a change to Government guidelines on abortion, after a new study into the mental effects of abortion has revealed that women who terminate pregnancies can still suffer from distress up to five years after the event. Research published by the University of Oslo indicates that women who have abortions suffer more long-term mental distress than those who have miscarriages during pregnancy. According to the study, after five years just 2.6 per cent of women in the miscarriage group were still suffering distress compared with 20 per cent in the abortion group. “This provides further evidence...

The lingering distress, sadness and guilt brought on by an induced abortion is worse than that of a miscarriage and decreases much more slowly as time goes on, according to a five-year study of Norwegian women published yesterday. In the aftermath of abortion, women "experienced more mental distress long after the event -- two and five years afterwards -- than women who had a miscarriage," the researchers reported. Along with "high levels" of anxiety and feelings of guilt and shame, the women who had voluntarily ended their pregnancy also "had to make efforts to avoid thoughts about the event," the...