About Andrew Van Dam

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.

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On Shots, NPR’s Health Blog, Nadja Popovich reports on a recent Johns Hopkins study that found, more troops were evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 for mental health problems than for combat injuries.

The increase comes despite the military’s increased focus on combating mental health problems among American soldiers. The largest number of evacuated soldiers are still those diagnosed with “noncombat-related injuries, such as muscle and joint problems that come from carrying equipment,” but psychiatric evacuations are a growing and complex problem.

American paratroopers in Afghanistan. Photo by U.S. Army Spc. William E. Henry via Flickr

… those suffering from mental health issues had a remarkably low rate of returning to full duty. “Psychiatric conditions have the lowest return to duty rates among any diagnostic group aside from combat injuries,” (study leader Steven P. Cohen, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve) wrote. “But the effects are much worse, because psychiatric conditions worsen the prognosis for all other conditions.”

“Patients with PTSD — as a rule — have multiple other complaints,” he continued. “Studies have shown that most people with persistent PTSD have ongoing musculoskeletal, neurological and constitutional complaints that are unlikely to respond to treatment.”

Related AHCJ articles

Interviewing ‘profoundly affected’ soldiers
Tips for interviewing service members returning from Iraq, the Middle East or Afghanistan

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.