HOMECOMING HEROES

Veterans of war have been known to suffer from high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD), depression and traumatic brain injury in addition to any physical wounds. And a new study of thousands of U.S. Army soldiers returning from combat duty in Iraq found up to 31 percent reported symptoms of PTSD or depression as long as a year after returning from the battlefield. Between 2004 and 2007, 18,305 soldiers returning from Active Component and National Guard infantry brigade combat teams completed surveys that screened for PTSD, depression and other trends, such as alcohol abuse, aggression and general difficulties getting along in civilian life, three months and a year after the soldiers returned from deployment in Iraq. Based on general definitions of the disorders the researchers found that 20.7 to 30.5 percent of soldiers met the criteria for PTSD, and 11.5 to 16 percent met the criteria for depression. And "using the strictest definitions with high symptom rates and serious functional impairment," the authors found up to 11.3 percent of soldiers had PTSD and up to 8.5 percent suffered from depression. Between 8.5 and 14 percent of soldiers reported "serious functional impairment" due to their symptoms, the authors noted in their study, which was led by Jeffrey Thomas, of the Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and published online June 7 in Archives of General Psychiatry. (Scientific American, 7 June) RD