Military Officer - June 2007 - (Page 63)

funds also are being used to support related work at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, the University of Washington, and several high-tech companies. VR therapy — done in the presence of a therapist — exposes patients to scenarios that trigger PTSD symptoms, bringing reactions into the open so the patient and the therapist can discuss how to deal with them effectively. According to Shilling, the scenarios, which are experienced through a special helmet, goggles, and earphones, are very realistic. “It can put you on a street in Baghdad and pump in different noises, such as a helicopter passing overhead, calls to prayer, people on the street, or RPG sounds,” he says. “Newer systems can even put smells into the environment, such as garbage or burned or rotting ﬂesh. “One of the things about combat stress and PTSD in particular is that patients start generalizing symptoms,” Shilling says. “They come home and things in their natural environment start triggering unwanted memories and anxieties that were developed in country. VR therapy [helps] them work through those memories so that they can deal with them more easily.” VR therapy is not a panacea, Shilling says, but should prove particularly effective with what he calls the “computer generation” — young people who grew up playing video games. “It’s a way of destigmatizing therapy,” Shilling says. “This is not your stereotypical experience with a psychiatrist.” Additional Treatments Transcendental meditation, yoga nidra, virtual reality therapy, and acupuncture aren’t the only alternative therapies that show promise in the treatment of PTSD. According to reports from the University of Maryland Medical Center, other treatments include: ■ eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which requires patients to make side-toside eye movements while recalling traumatic events. Test patients with PTSD have reported a reduction in symptoms, but it remains unknown whether the technique is superior to traditional treatment modalities or how long the reduction of symptoms lasts; ■ biofeedback, a relaxation technique that teaches PTSD patients to control their autonomous functions, such as breathing and heart rate, during times of stress and anxiety; and ■ hypnosis, which has long been used to treat war-related post-traumatic stress. It induces a deep state of relaxation, which helps some PTSD sufferers feel safer and less anxious. Hypnosis also helps patients decrease intrusive thoughts and become more involved in daily activities. Acupuncture Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese system of healing in which thin needles are inserted into selected points in the body to relieve pain and stimulate healing. Traditional practitioners believe the process treats a person’s vital energy or qi (pronounced “chee”), which ﬂows along natural pathways known as meridians. Western researchers theorize the needles activate deep sensory nerves, causing the pituitary gland and midbrain to release natural painkillers called endorphins. Dr. Michael Holliﬁeld, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, conducted a study of acupuncture and PTSD from 2003-04 at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The study involved 84 men and women with PTSD, including a handful of combat veterans, and was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. “Acupuncture in this preliminary pilot study looked to be very helpful for PTSD and perhaps in some ways as helpful as the standard treatment of cognitive behavioral therapy,” says Holliﬁeld, who is waiting for the A study results to be published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. “I can’t give numbers pending publication, but acupuncture proved helpful enough to where some participants said they were signiﬁcantly helped and/or did not have as much of their post-traumatic stress symptoms anymore.” Additional acupuncture and PTSD studies are in the works. Alaine Duncan, executive director of Crossings Healingworks in Silver Spring, Md., is the assessing acupuncturist with a PTSD study at the Deployment Health Clinical Center at WRAMC. In addition, she works as an acupuncturist in the War-Related Injuries and Illnesses Study Center at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center. Ofﬁcials at WRAMC approached Duncan about the acupuncture study. “My experience has been that the military is more open than civilian hospitals when it comes to the study of complementary medicine,” she says. MO JUNE 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 63

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Military Officer - June 2007 Contents From the Editor From the President Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Getting the Best Care Stand By Me Promise for PTSD Cover Story: Heavy Duty Unified Medical Command Pages of History Faces of MOAA Information Exchange Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Member Services MOAA Calendar MOAA Scholarship Donors Sounding Taps Encore

Military Officer - June 2007

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