Even though combat action in Afghanistan is decreasing for most soldiers, it’s not translating to less stress. Members of the military committed suicide at a record pace in 2012 — almost one per day — and some experts think the trend will grow worse this year.
What Research Says
Pentagon figures obtained by The Associated Press show 349 suicides among active-duty troops last year, up from 301 the year before and exceeding the Pentagon’s own internal projection of 325. Last year’s total is the highest since the Pentagon began closely tracking suicides.
The Pentagon has struggled to deal with suicides, which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and others have called an epidemic. The problem reflects severe strains on military personnel burdened with more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq and is increasingly complicated by anxiety over the prospect of being forced out of uniform as defense budgets are cut.
“Now that we’re decreasing our troops and they’re coming back home, that’s when they’re really in the danger zone, when they’re transitioning back to their families, back to their communities and really finding a sense of purpose for themselves,” said Kim Ruocco, whose husband, Marine Maj. John Ruocco, killed himself in 2005. She directs a suicide prevention program for a support group, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS.
One such case was Army Spc. Christopher Nguyen, 29, who killed himself in August at an off-post residence he shared with another member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., according to his sister, Shawna Nguyen. “He was practically begging for help, and nothing was done,” she said in an interview.
She said he had been diagnosed with an “adjustment disorder” — a problem of coping with the uncertainties of returning home after three deployments in war zones. She believes the Army failed her brother by not doing more to ensure that he received the help he needed before he became suicidal. “It’s the responsibility of the military to help these men and women,” she said. “They sent them over there (to war); they should be helping them when they come back.”
Finding Help for Service Members
Officials say they are committed to pursuing ways of finding help for service members in trouble. “Our most valuable resource within the department is our people. We are committed to taking care of our people and that includes doing everything possible to prevent suicides in the military,” Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said Monday.
The Army, by far the largest of the military services, had the highest number of suicides among active-duty troops last year at 182, but the Marine Corps, whose suicide numbers had declined for two years, had the largest percentage increase — a 50 percent jump to 48. The Marines’ worst year was 2009, with 52 suicides. The Air Force recorded 59 suicides, up 16 percent from the previous year, and the Navy had 60, up 15 percent. All the numbers are tentative, pending the completion later this year of formal pathology reports on each case.
Suicide Prevention
Suicide prevention has become a high Pentagon priority, yet the problem persists. “If you have a perfect storm of events on the day with somebody who has high risk factors, it’s very difficult to be there every moment, fill every crack, and we just have to continue to be aware of what the risk factors are,” Ruocco said.
Two retired Army generals, Peter W. Chiarelli and Dennis J. Reimer, have spoken out about the urgency of reversing the trend. “One of the things we learned during our careers,” they wrote in The Washington Post last month, “is that stress, guns and alcohol constitute a dangerous mixture. In the wrong proportions, they tend to blow out the lamp of the mind and cause irrational acts.”
A study also found that most service members who attempted suicide — about 65 percent — had a known behavior disorder such as depression, whereas 45 percent of those who actually completed the act and killed themselves had such a history.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
We Can Help
If you or a loved one is experiencing symptoms of depression, anxiety or PTSD, Amen Clinics can help. We will help you learn more about your brain and assist with early diagnosis and intervention. Call us today at 888-288-9834 or visit our website to schedule a visit. If you’ve suffered a stroke, taking steps to improve your brain health and mood are critical. A study has found that people who become depressed after a stroke may have a tripled risk of dying early and four times the risk of death from stroke compared to people who have not experienced a stroke or depression.
“Up to one in three people who have a stroke develop depression,” said study author Amytis Towfighi, MD, with the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Los Angeles, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “This is something family members can help watch for that could potentially save their loved one.” Towfighi also noted that similar associations have been found regarding depression and heart attack, but less is known about the association between stroke, depression and death.
What Research Says
The research included 10,550 people between the ages of 25 and 74 followed for 21 years. Of those, 73 had a stroke but did not develop depression, 48 had stroke and depression, 8,138 did not have a stroke or depression and 2,291 did not have a stroke but had depression.
After considering factors such as age, gender, race, education, income level and marital status, the risk of dying from any cause was three times higher in individuals who had stroke and depression compared to those who had not had a stroke and were not depressed. The risk of dying from stroke was four times higher among those who had a stroke and were depressed compared to people who had not had a stroke and were not depressed.
“Our research highlights the importance of screening for and treating depression in people who have experienced a stroke,” said Towfighi. “Given how common depression is after stroke, and the potential consequences of having depression, looking for signs and symptoms and addressing them may be key.”
The Risk
The risk of developing serious brain problems in a person who has a stroke is six to ten times greater than that in the general population. Even a stroke smaller than a pencil-head eraser increases the risk for dementia four to twelve-fold.
How to Reduce Your Stroke Risk
A stroke is a single, damaging attack, but the risk factors that lead to a stroke, such as high blood pressure, smoking, heart disease, and diabetes, develop over a long time. You can reduce your stroke risk by taking the following simple steps:
• Keep blood pressure under control. Check your blood pressure often and if it’s high, follow your doctor’s advice on how to lower it. Treating high blood pressure reduces the risk of both stroke and heart disease.
• Stop smoking. Cigarette smoking is linked to an increased risk of stroke and heart disease. The risk of stroke for people who have quit smoking for two to five years is lower than that for people who still smoke.
• Exercise regularly. Exercise makes the heart stronger and improves circulation. It also helps control weight. Being overweight increases the chance of high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and adult-onset (type 2) diabetes. Physical activities like walking bicycling, swimming, and tennis lower the risk of both stroke and heart disease. Talk with your doctor before starting a vigorous exercise program.
• Eat a healthy, balanced diet and control diabetes. If untreated, diabetes can damage the blood vessels throughout the body and lead to atherosclerosis.
We Can Help
There are many ways to optimize your brain and your mind. You CAN create a brain healthy life by learning how to love and care for your brain and body. If you, or someone you love, could benefit from an evaluation at Amen Clinics, call our brain health advisors today at 888-288-9834 or tell us more online to schedule an appointment. In May 2012, former all-star NFL linebacker Junior Seau tragically took his own life. This came as a shock to everybody as Seau was loved by family, friends and fans alike. The circumstances of his death at the young age of 43 also carry many questions surrounding his struggles with depression and its connection to playing football.
What Research Says
Researches from the National Institutes of Health sought to answer some of these questions in the report they release that confirmed that Junior Seau suffered from a degenerative brain disease often linked with repeated blows to the head.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a neurodegenerative condition that can lead to memory loss, dementia and depression. Seau’s family donated his brain to the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., to find out if he was one of many players whose time in the NFL led to CTE.
“It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth,” Gina Seau added, “and now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously. You can’t deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There’s such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE.” “It’s important that we take steps to help these players. We certainly don’t want to see anything like this happen again to any of our athletes.”
Junior Seau’s Diagnosis
Dr. Russell Lonser, the former Chief of Surgical Neurology at the NIH, said that because of the publicity surrounding Seau’s death, Seau’s brain was “blinded” during research so that nobody doing the diagnosis would know whose brain they were studying.
“The neuropathologists each examined tissue samples from three different unidentified brains. The official, unanimous diagnosis of Mr. Seau’s brain was a ‘multi-focal tauopathy consistent with a diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy,’ the NIH said in its statement. “In addition, there was a very small region in the left frontal lobe of the brain with evidence of scarring that is consistent with a small, old, traumatic brain injury.”
“Specifically, the neuropathologists found abnormal, small clusters called neurofibrillary tangles of a protein known as tau within multiple regions of Mr. Seau’s brain. Tau is a normal brain protein that folds into tangled masses in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and many other progressive neurological disorders. The regional brain distribution of the tau tangles observed in this case is unique to CTE and distinguishes it from other brain disorders.”
“The type of findings seen in Mr. Seau’s brain have been recently reported in autopsies of individuals with exposure to repetitive head injury, including professional and amateur athletes who played contact sports, individuals with multiple concussions, and veterans exposed to blast injury and other trauma.
Behavior Swings
In the final years of his life, Seau had wild behavioral swings, according to ex-wife, Gina, and 23-year-old son, Tyler, along with signs of irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression. He hid it well in public, they said, but not when he was with family or close friends.
Gina Seau said that the diagnosis was not a surprise. “We saw changes in his behavior and things that didn’t add up with him, but (CTE) was not something we considered or even were aware of. The difference with Junior … from an emotional standpoint [was] how detached he became emotionally,” she said. “It was so obvious to me because early, many, many years ago, he used to be such a phenomenal communicator. If there was a problem in any relationship, whether it was between us or a relationship with one of his coaches or teammates or somewhere in the business world, he would sit down and talk about it.”
Was CTE To Blame?
In his 20-year NFL career, Seau was never listed as having a concussion on any medical or injury report, but he joins a list of several dozen football players who were found to have CTE. Boston University’s center for study of the disease reported last month that 34 former pro players and, nine who played only college football, suffered from CTE.
Seau is not the first former NFL player who killed himself and later was found to have had CTE. Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling are others. Before shooting himself, Duerson, a former Chicago Bears defensive back, left a note asking that his brain be studied for signs of trauma. His family filed a wrongful-death suit against the NFL, claiming the league didn’t do enough to prevent or treat the concussions that severely damaged his brain. Easterling played safety for the Falcons in the 1970s. After his career, he suffered from dementia, depression and insomnia, according to his wife, Mary Ann. He committed suicide last April.
Your Brain on Football
Given how football is played, the problem the NFL is going to face is there is really no way to prevent these types of injuries. Helmets only prevent skull fractures. Your brain is very soft; composed of about 80 percent water and is the consistency of soft butter. Your brain is housed in a hard skull surrounded by fluid. When these hits happen on the football field, the head comes to an abrupt stop, but the brain which is suspended within the skull, continues in the path of motion where the head and helmet stopped. The brain then strikes that portion of the skull. Every time this happens neurons are being ripped and damaged. Over time these areas can lose function causing emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems. It is imperative to bring this information to light so that more people understand the dangers of these contact sports and the detrimental effect it can have on their mental health.
We Can Help
If you are having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Amen Clinics has helped thousands of people heal their brains and we can help you, too. With targeted treatment, you can change your brain and change your life. If you or a loved one is struggling with behavior issues or want to learn more about the effects of brain injury, please call us today at 888-288-9834 or visit our website to schedule an appointment. 7 out of every 10 women under-going menopause have at some point experienced problems with hot flashes and sweating.
For 1 in 10 women, the problems lasted five years or longer, primarily causing discomfort in social situations and insomnia. According to a study out of Women Linköping University and Linköping University Hospital in Sweden, women who learn to relax can reduce these menopausal troubles by half.
Why Do Women Get Hot Flashes?
The exact cause of hot flashes is not known, but the signs and symptoms point to factors affecting the function of your body’s thermostat — the hypothalamus. This area at the base of your brain regulates body temperature and other basic processes. The estrogen reduction you experience during menopause may disrupt hypothalamic function, leading to hot flashes.
Can Medication Help?
Medication with estrogen has proven to have a good effect. At the end of the 1990’s, Swedish doctors prescribed hormone tablets to around 40% of women with moderate to severe symptoms. But since new observations have shown that the treatment increased the risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, their use has decreased drastically.
Are There Other Forms of Treatment?
The situation triggered an interest in alternative forms of treatment. For her doctoral thesis, Women’s Clinic consultant Elizabeth Nedstrand arranged a study where a group of women were randomly assigned to three different treatments alongside estrogen: acupuncture, exercise, and applied relaxation — a method based on cognitive behavior therapy.
The results were so interesting that a larger randomized study around the effects of applied relaxation began in 2007. Sixty women who saw a doctor for moderate to severe symptoms occurring at least 50 times a week — but who were otherwise completely healthy — were randomly assigned to two groups: one had ten sessions of group therapy and the other received no treatment whatsoever.
During the intervention period and for three months thereafter, the women kept a diary of their hot flashes. They also had to fill out a “quality of life” survey on three occasions, in addition to submitting a saliva sample for analysis of the stress hormone cortisol.
The Results
The women in the treatment group reduced the number of hot flashes per day from an average of 9.1 to 4.4; the effect remained for three months after the last therapy session. The numbers in the control group also decreased, but only from 9.7 to 7.8.
The women in the therapy group also reported improved quality of life as regards memory and concentration, sleep, and anxiety. On the other hand, there were no statistically significant differences in stress hormone secretion.
The study confirms that applied relaxation can help women with menopausal troubles. Our hope is that women can be offered this treatment in primary care and from private health care providers.
Feel Better Today
At Amen Clinics, we have spent decades helping people just like you improve their overall health and thus their brain health. We offer a full breadth of treatment options and services, including an integrative medicine program. Call us today at 888-288-9834 or schedule a visit.
