DARPA creates “virtual humans, programmed to appear empathetic” for soldiers with PTSD

telepresenceoptions.com | Apr 26, 2012

by Katie Drummond

The Pentagon hasn’t made much progress in solving the PTSD crisis plaguing this generation of soldiers. Now it’s adding new staff members to the therapy teams tasked with spotting the signs of emotional pain and providing therapy to the beleaguered. Only this isn’t a typical hiring boost. The new therapists, Danger Room has learned, will be computer-generated “virtual humans,” used to offer diagnostics, and programmed to appear empathetic.

It’s the latest in a long series of efforts to assuage soaring rates of depression, anxiety and PTSD that afflict today’s troops. Military brass have become increasingly willing to try just about anything, from yoga and reiki to memory-adjustment pills, that holds an iota of promise. They’ve even funded computerized therapy before: In 2010, for example, the military launched an effort to create an online health portal that’d include video chats with therapists.

But this project, funded by Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out research arm, is way more ambitious. Darpa’s research teams are hoping to combine 3-D rendered simulated therapists — think Sims characters mixed with ELIZA — with sensitive analysis software that can actually detect psychological symptoms “by analyzing facial expressions, body gestures and speech,” Dr. Albert Rizzo, who is leading the project alongside Dr. Louis-Philippe Morency, tells Danger Room. The therapists won’t treat patients, but they will help flesh-and-blood counselors by offering a general diagnosis of what ails soldiers, and how serious the problem is.

Antidepressants Do More Harm Than Good, Study Says

The antidepressant drug Prozac, also known as fluoxetine, is seen on a table. The side effects of antidepressants far outweigh their minimal benefits, according to a new study. (Photo: Reuters)

ibtimes.com | Apr 25, 2012

By Amir Khan

Antidepressants do more harm than good since patients presume the drugs are safe though numerous side effects are well known, according to a new study.

Harmful side effects of commonly prescribed antidepressants can include stroke and premature death and far outweigh the minimal benefits, according to the study authors.

“We need to be much more cautious about the widespread use of these drugs,” Paul Andrews, study author and evolutionary biologist at McMaster University, said in a statement. “It’s important because millions of people are prescribed anti-depressants each year, and the conventional wisdom about these drugs is that they’re safe and effective.”

One class of antidepressants relieves depressive symptoms by increasing the level of serotonin hormone, a mood regulator that contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness. The body produces serotonin for other non-neurological purposes such as blood clots, digestion and reproduction, researchers said.

“Serotonin is an ancient chemical,” Andrews said in a statement. “It’s intimately regulating many different processes, and when you interfere with these things you can expect, from an evolutionary perspective, that it’s going to cause some harm.”

Researchers found that antidepressants hinder serotonin regulation and can cause digestive problems, atypical sperm development, abnormal bleeding, stroke and premature death. Antidepressant manufacturers warn of side effects on drug labels though patients do not always consider how the side effects will affect their lives, according to the study authors.

“It is widely believed that antidepressant medications are both safe and effective; however, this belief was formed in the absence of adequate scientific verification,” the researchers wrote. “The weight of current evidence suggests that, in general, antidepressants are neither safe nor effective; they appear to do more harm than good.”

One in 20 Americans over the age of 12 reported feeling symptoms of depression between 2005 and 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include hopelessness, feeling like a failure, poor appetite, lack of interest in activities and suicidal thuogts.

People with depression miss almost five workdays every three months, according to the CDC. Depression causes 200 million lost workdays every year and costs employers between $17 billion and $44 billion annually, according to U.S. health authorities.

Antidepressants were the most frequently used prescription drug by people aged 18 to 44 between 2005 and 2008, according to the CDC. From 1988 to 2008, antidepressant use increased by almost 400 percent.

Doctors need to re-evaluate the prudence of dispensing antidepressant prescriptions on such a large scale, according to the study authors. The study’s findings will hopefully get clinicians to take a critical look at the drugs’ continuing use.

“It could change the way we think about such major pharmaceutical drugs,” he says. “You’ve got a minimal benefit, a laundry list of negative effects – some small, some rare and some not so rare. The issue is: Does the list of negative effects outweigh the minimal benefit?”

Army encourages new way of looking at PTSD

A new Army policy document says symptoms often associated with combat stress — hyperarousal, anger, numbness and sleeplessness — may be signs of illness at home but also responses crucial to survival in a war zone. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / April 25, 2012)

Traditional definitions of post-traumatic stress disorder may not fit in the case of a trained warrior, a new policy document states.

Los Angeles Times | Apr 25, 2012

By Kim Murphy

SEATTLE — In a move to improve treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, the Army is discouraging the use of traditional definitions such as feelings of fear, helplessness and horror — symptoms that may not be in a trained warrior’s vocabulary. It also is recommending against the use of anti-anxiety and antipsychotic medications for such combat stress in favor of more proven drugs.

The changes are reflected in a new policy document released this month, one that reflects a growing understanding of the “occupational” nature of the condition for many troops. For them, the symptoms often associated with combat stress — hyperarousal, anger, numbness and sleeplessness — may be signs of illness at home but also responses crucial to survival in a war zone.

Doctors who adhere strictly to traditional PTSD definitions could withhold lifesaving treatment for those who need it most, Army doctors now warn, passing over soldiers or accusing them of faking problems.

“There is considerable new evidence that certain aspects of the definition are not adequate for individuals working in the military and other first-responder occupations,” such as firefighting and police work, according to the policy, developed by the U.S. Army Medical Command.

“They often do not endorse ‘fear, helplessness or horror,’ the typical response of civilian victims to traumatic events. Although they may experience fear internally, they are trained to fall back on their training skills [and] may have other responses such as anger.”

Charles Hoge of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, who for seven years oversaw the institute’s research on the psychological consequences of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the document reflected work already underway by a committee of the American Psychiatric Assn. to refine the standards for treating PTSD based on an abundance of new research.

Clinicians will continue to use an algorithm of symptoms to help screen for combat stress, but PTSD should no longer be summarily ruled out if a soldier meets most of the definitions but fails to exhibit classic signs of fear or helplessness, he said.

“There is greater recognition now of the occupational context,” Hoge said in an interview. “For me as a clinician, this can change how I talk about the condition with my clients. It kind of normalizes a lot of their experiences and helps them understand why they’re reacting and experiencing things in certain ways.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, called the new policy “an overdue but very welcome step toward improving the diagnosis of the invisible wounds of war … [that] will help standardize Army mental healthcare through the use of proven treatments and assessments.”

The new Army policy document estimates that up to a fourth of all service members who have deployed to combat zones come back with full-fledged PTSD but that only about 20% complete a full course of treatment.

The policy addresses growing concerns over soldiers’ use of powerful psychiatric drugs for the condition, finding that anti-anxiety drugs such as Ativan, Klonopin and Valium may do more harm than good and “should be avoided” unless specific cases warrant their use. Likewise, the new policy advises against the “off label” use of second-generation antipsychotics, especially risperidone, for PTSD because of potential long-term health effects.

The policy endorses both antidepressants such as Prozac and psychotherapy as equally valid methods of treating PTSD.

While there has been criticism of the use of these drugs among young adults because they can in some cases encourage suicidal thoughts, Army officials have long said the benefits outweigh the risks. Hoge said it was not possible to know for sure whether the two forms of therapy were equally effective because not enough studies had been done.

“There are a lot of instances when individuals need to talk through these events,” he said. “So in a lot of cases, individuals get a combination of medications and psychotherapies.”

The new policy on diagnosing PTSD could shed light on an investigation underway at the Madigan Army Medical Center near Seattle. There, about 300 combat stress cases are being reviewed after a number of PTSD diagnoses were set aside by a local Army forensic review team. Some soldiers were accused of faking PTSD symptoms, presumably to receive disability payments.

The new policy says clearly that faking PTSD is not something doctors see often.

“Although there has been debate on the role of symptom exaggeration or malingering for secondary gain … there is considerable evidence that this is rare and unlikely to be a major factor in the vast majority of disability determinations,” the policy says.

Number of children with autism soars by more than 50% in just five years

Photo: Getty Images

The number of schoolchildren who are classified as being autistic has soared by 56 per cent in the last five years.

Telegraph | Mar 22, 2012

There are now 61,570 schoolchildren in the state-funded sector that have been recorded as having some kind of autistic spectrum disorder and they make up almost one percent of the entire school population.

Just five years ago, the number of children classified as being autistic was just 39,465 and they accounted for just 0.5 per cent of the school population.

The Government’s definition of autism is a lifelong condition that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people, and how a person makes sense of the world around them.

The term is used to cover a variety of autistic conditions including Asperger’s syndrome. Data from the Department of Education shows that in 2006 autistic children made up just one in every 200 pupils.

The latest figures put that ratio at one in every 125 children. Autism can cause learning problems for children.

Around 20percent of autistic pupils have been suspended from school more than once and around 50percent say they have been bullied at school.

The USA has seen a similar rise in the number of children with autism. Its Government estimates the cost of schooling a child with the condition is treble the figure for a child that does not need any extra assistance.

Some experts fear the sharp rise in autism may be more down to parents trying to seek an advantage for their child rather than a genuine ailment.

Sociology professor Frank Furedi, who wrote Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, said: “There has been a proliferation for dispensation on the grounds of autism.

“It is unlikely to be a genuine unprecedented increase in autism, rather an institutional use of this condition to allow people to get easier access to resources.

“This activity ends up trivialising what is a very serious condition for some children.”

Statistics from schools in England shows that in the same five year period that has seen autism rise, there has also been an increase on 15percent in the numbers of children registered as having behavioural, emotional or social difficulties to a total of 158,015.

It means that in total there are now 701,000 children, almost one in ten schoolchildren, who are classified as having some kind of special needs.

Nick Seaton, a spokesman for the Campaign for Real Education, said: “Obviously children with autism need special treatment.

“But the rapid increase does suggest that perhaps the figures should be looked at again.

“Children should not be classified as having special needs too easily. The rise should be examined closely because it has a knock-on effect for teachers, schools and the pupils themselves.”

Caroline Hattersley, Head of Information, Advice and Advocacy at The National Autistic Society, said: “A recent NHS study revealed that the prevalence of autism is 1 in 100 and that the same rate applies for adults as for children. We know that with accurate diagnosis the right support can be put in place so that children with autism can reach their full potential.

“It’s very likely that all teachers and school staff will come into contact with children with autism at some stage during their teaching career, so it’s vital that they receive quality training and strategies to support these children in the classroom.”

A Department of Education spokesman said: “Schools receive funding to meet their duty to support any child with special educational needs, including autism.

In addition, through the Autism Education Trust, we are funding autism training for teachers. “We’re proposing the biggest programme of reforms in 30 years to help children and young people with special educational need or disabilities, including those with autism.

“We recently announced 20 pathfinder areas that will be testing out some of the main proposals from the Special Educational needs and disability Green Paper. This includes trialling a new, single education, health and care plan that can cover children and young people aged birth to 25.”

Shyness and grieving to be classified as mental illnesses in controversial new reforms

Sweet: But childhood shyness could be classified as a mental disorder as the editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders prepare for a fifth edition

‘It will pathologise a range of problems which should never be thought of as mental illnesses. Many who are shy, bereaved, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives will suddenly find themselves labelled as “mentally ill”’

- Peter Kinderman, head of the Institute of Psychology, University of Liverpool

Childhood shyness could be reclassified as a mental disorder under controversial new guidelines, warn experts.

They also fear that depression after bereavement and behaviour now seen as eccentric or unconventional will also become ‘medicalised’.

Internet addiction and gambling might also become forms of illness.

Daily Mail | Feb 9, 2012

By Jenny Hope

The threat comes in the form of proposed changes to a U.S. manual of mental disorders, viewed as a bible by some in the field.

Although the changes to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders would not directly affect clinical practice here – where doctors tend to use different guidelines – experts say it would eventually influence thinking.

Millions of people, including Britons, could be given a psychiatric diagnosis which could ruin their lives, warn psychiatrists and psychologists here.

Related

Shyness, grieving soon to be classified as mental illness

The DSM5 changes are also opposed by many experts in the U.S., some of whom claim they reflect efforts by drug companies to sell more products.

Simon Wessely, of the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, said: ‘We need to be very careful before further broadening the boundaries of illness and disorder.

‘Back in 1840 the census of the United States included just one category for mental disorder.

‘By 1917 the American Psychiatric Association recognised 59, rising to 128 in 1959, 227 in 1980, and 347 in the last revision. Do we really need all these labels?

‘Probably not. And there is a real danger that shyness will become social phobia, bookish kids labelled as Asperger’s and so on.’

Peter Kinderman, head of the Institute of Psychology, University of Liverpool, said: ‘It will exacerbate problems that result from trying to fit a medical, diagnostic, system to problems that just don’t fit nicely into those boxes.

‘It will pathologise a range of problems which should never be thought of as mental illnesses. Many who are shy, bereaved, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives will suddenly find themselves labelled as “mentally ill”.

‘This isn’t valid, isn’t true, isn’t humane.’

Paraphilic Coercive Disorder – becoming aroused by sexual coercion – is one condition proposed for inclusion in DSM5. Professor Kinderman said there was a danger that rapists diagnosed with it would use it as an excuse.

He added that there were ‘huge concerns’ about the changes, which are opposed by the British Psychological Society.

Other experts say the guidelines will straitjacket clinicians into ‘ticking boxes’ that lead to a proscribed diagnosis. Dr Felicity Callard, of King’s College, warned: ‘People’s lives can be altered profoundly – and sometimes ruinously – by being given a psychiatric diagnosis.’

Among the U.S. psychiatrists against the changes is Allen Frances, of Duke University, North Carolina.

He warned: ‘DSM5 will radically and recklessly expand the boundaries of psychiatry. Many millions will receive inaccurate diagnosis and inappropriate treatment.’

David Elkins, of Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, said individuals could be ‘labelled with a mental disorder for life and many will be treated with powerful psychiatric drugs’.

Defenders of the American Psychiatric Association guidelines say they will make diagnosis more accurate and scientific.

Report: 1 in 5 of US adults on behavioral meds

“And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing …a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.”

- Aldous Huxley, 1959

Associated Press | Nov 16, 2011

NEW YORK — More than 20 percent of American adults took at least one drug for conditions like anxiety and depression in 2010, according to an analysis of prescription data, including more than one in four women.

The report, released Wednesday by pharmacy benefits manager Medco Health Solutions Inc., found that use of drugs for psychiatric and behavioral disorders rose 22 percent from 2001. The medications are most often prescribed to women aged 45 and older, but their use among men and in younger adults climbed sharply. In adults 20 to 44, use of antipsychotic drugs and treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder more than tripled, and use of anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax, Valium and Ativan rose 30 percent from a decade ago.

The statistics were taken from Medco’s database of prescriptions and is based on 2.5 million patients with 24 months of continuous prescription drug insurance and eligibility.

The company said women are twice as likely as men to use anxiety treatments, as 11 percent of women 45 to 65 are on an anxiety medication. Women are also more likely than men to take antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Abilify, which treat disorders like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, among men 20 to 64, use of the drugs has quadrupled over the last decade.

“There has been a significant uptick in the use of medications to treat a variety of mental health problems; what is not as clear is if more people — especially women, are actually developing psychological disorders that require treatment, or if they are more willing to seek out help and clinicians are better at diagnosing these conditions than they once were,” said Dr. David Muzina, a psychiatrist and national practice leader of Medco’s Neuroscience Therapeutic Resource Center.

Pharmaceutical companies have also sought and received approvals to market their drugs to larger groups of people.

Drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are prescribed to boys more often than girls, but adult women now take the drugs more often than men. ADHD prescriptions to adult women grew 2.5 times from 2001. However ADHD prescriptions for children have been declining since 2005.

That reflects a decline in prescriptions for psychiatric and behavioral drugs for children. Medco found that prescriptions of those drugs for children have dropped since 2004, when the FDA warned they were linked to suicidal thoughts when used in people under 19. The company said less than 1 percent of children use antipsychotics drugs, although the figure has doubled since 2001.

In the “diabetes belt” states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama, about 23 percent of people are on at least one psychiatric or behavioral disorder drug. Diabetes is particularly widespread in those states and the condition is associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety disorders. The lowest rate of prescriptions was found in Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, where less than 15 percent of people are using those medications.

Quit-smoking drug side effects include depression, suicide, unprovoked violence, heart attacks, strokes and blackouts

Anti-smoking Drug Linked to Increased Risk of Suicide

ibtimes.com | Nov 4, 2011

A common anti-smoking drug significantly increases the risk of suicide and should only be used as a last resort, doctors warned at a meeting on Wednesday evening.

Doctors say patients who take Champix were eight times more likely to be linked to depression and reported cases of suicidal behaviour than those who use other nicotine products, such as the nicotine patch or gum.

Prescribed more than one million times in Britain last year, Champix has previously been linked to heart attacks, strokes, unprovoked violence and blackouts.

Dr Curt Furberg, from the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina, and the professor of public health sciences behind the latest study, said “the risks simply outweigh the benefits.”

Dr Furberg would like the drug to be banned but accepts this will be highly unlikely. A year after people start taking the drug, only 10 per cent of people are off cigarettes, he said.

“Champix should be the last resort. You should give counselling to help people quit and if you need medication use nicotine replacement or Zyban,” advised Dr Furberg.

“If you give Champix, keep track of the person’s mental status.”

Related

• New study links Chantix with suicide and depression
• Anti-smoking drug ‘greatly raises suicide risk and should only be used as a last resort’

Since its introduction in Britain in 2006, Champix has been linked to 80 deaths, including 39 suicides. Additionally, hundreds of patients have reported complaints of suicidal thoughts while taking the drug.

Dr Furberg and his colleagues studied the number of serious side effects of anti-smoking treatments reported to the U.S. drug watchdog between 1998 and 2010.

Champix, also known as varenicline and sold in the U.S. as Chantix, topped the list, even though it was only approved for four of the years included in the nearly 13 year study.

Ninety per cent, or 2,925 cases, of reported depression and suicidal behaviour linked to the drug. By comparison, Zyban, accounted for seven per cent while patches, gums and other nicotine replacement products accounted for just three per cent.

“We found that Champix is associated with more suicidal behaviour reports than any other smoking-cessation drug on the U.S. market,” said Dr Furberg.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Britain’s drug watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said all medicines have side effects and linking reaction to a drug does not prove it was caused by the drug.

A spokesperson for MHRA said they would “carefully consider” the results of this study to see whether further advice to health professionals and patients is required.

Although Champix carries strong warnings about side effects on its label, Dr Furberg and colleagues want the FDA to further restrict its use by making it a second choice drug when other treatments have failed.

The anti-smoking tablets work by binding to nicotine receptors in the brain, reducing the symptoms of withdrawal.

Shaken Troops Face New Foe: Early Dementia

The most devastating impact of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be on soldiers’ brains, and many of the injured likely don’t even know it. At least not yet.

Wired | Sep 23, 2011

As I describe in the new issue of Nature, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that these injured troops, who could easily number in the hundreds of thousands, face a heightened risk of early-onset dementia, and other diseases that attack the brain.

Worse, by Pentagon officials’ own admission, the military effectively ignored many cases of mild Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI, primary caused by exposure to roadside bombs, for the better part of six years. One study, published in 2008 by a group of Army researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine, even downplayed the role of mild TBI, suggesting that people should use the word “concussion” rather than “mild traumatic brain injury” to avoid perpetuating the belief they are suffering from a long-term injury.

But with evidence mounting of troops returning home with severe neurological impairment, that attitude has finally changed. And over the past two years, a combination of a better science, and growing awareness among military leaders about the scope of the potential epidemic, has finally led to new policies and treatment for those suffering from mild TBI.

What exactly was the tipping point for this change is hard to pinpoint, as I note in this edition of latest edition of Nature, which focuses on military science. But one crucial moment came in 2009 when Marine Corps commandant General James Amos toured Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, and was introduced to a patient who said, with considerable effort, “General, I know who you are. I have a picture of you and I together in Iraq.”

It turned out that Amos had a copy of the picture, too. It had been taken just two years earlier, when he had posed with a group of Marines who had just survived an IED that had detonated directly under their vehicle. Thanks to the vehicle’s advanced armor, all of them seemed unscathed. But this young man, a bomb-disposal expert, went straight back to work and was quickly exposed to several more blasts. His physical condition deteriorated rapidly, his life began to unravel and — after some difficulty getting the military medical establishment to recognize his TBI — he had been admitted to Walter Reed with severe neurological problems.

Amos describes the meeting as a seminal moment for him. “This TBI business is real, and we’ve got to get past the point of ignoring it,” he recalls of his reaction. “We need to do something about it.”

According to official Pentagon statistics, over 200,000 troops have suffered some form of Traumatic Brain Injury over the past 10 years, and independent estimates, such as those from Rand Corp., suggest the real number could be even higher. By the Pentagon’s own admission, many soldiers who likely suffered this invisible form of TBI were never screened for concussions prior to 2009-2010.

Nearly 40 percent of Europeans suffer mental illness

Reuters | Sep 4, 2011

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) – Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden — measured in the hundreds of billions of euros — as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

“Mental disorders have become Europe’s largest health challenge of the 21st century,” the study’s authors said.

At the same time, some big drug companies are backing away from investment in research on how the brain works and affects behavior, putting the onus on governments and health charities to stump up funding for neuroscience.

“The immense treatment gap … for mental disorders has to be closed,” said Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany’s Dresden University and the lead investigator on the European study.

“Those few receiving treatment do so with considerable delays of an average of several years and rarely with the appropriate, state-of-the-art therapies.”

Wittchen led a three-year study covering 30 European countries — the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway — and a population of 514 million people.

A direct comparison of the prevalence of mental illnesses in other parts of the world was not available because different studies adopt varying parameters.

Wittchen’s team looked at about 100 illnesses covering all major brain disorders from anxiety and depression to addiction to schizophrenia, as well as major neurological disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

The results, published by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ENCP) on Monday, show an “exceedingly high burden” of mental health disorders and brain illnesses, he told reporters at a briefing in London.

Mental illnesses are a major cause of death, disability, and economic burden worldwide and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease across all ages.

Wittchen said that in Europe, that grim future had arrived early, with diseases of the brain already the single largest contributor to the EU’s burden of ill health.

The four most disabling conditions — measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years or DALYs, a standard measure used to compare the impact of various diseases — are depression, dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, alcohol dependence and stroke.

The last major European study of brain disorders, which was published in 2005 and covered a smaller population of about 301 million people, found 27 percent of the EU adult population was suffering from mental illnesses.

Although the 2005 study cannot be compared directly with the latest finding — the scope and population was different — it found the cost burden of these and neurological disorders amounted to about 386 billion euros ($555 billion) a year at that time. Wittchen’s team has yet to finalize the economic impact data from this latest work, but he said the costs would be “considerably more” than estimated in 2005.

The researchers said it was crucial for health policy makers to recognize the enormous burden and devise ways to identify potential patients early — possibly through screening — and make treating them quickly a high priority.

“Because mental disorders frequently start early in life, they have a strong malignant impact on later life,” Wittchen said. “Only early targeted treatment in the young will effectively prevent the risk of increasingly largely proportions of severely ill…patients in the future.”

David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacology expert at Imperial College London who was not involved in this study, agreed.

“If you can get in early you may be able to change the trajectory of the illness so that it isn’t inevitable that people go into disability,” he said. “If we really want not to be left with this huge reservoir of mental and brain illness for the next few centuries, then we ought to be investing more now.”

Army suicides at a record high last month

A soldier on patrol in Afghanistan. Photo by ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images

CNN | Aug 16, 2011

By Larry Shaughnessy

The U.S. Army reported 32 suicides and potential suicides in the month of July, the highest total since the service began publicly releasing such statistics 2 ½ years ago. And the problem is even worse than the Pentagon’s news releases would indicate.

Each month the Army sends out a press report saying how many soldiers have committed suicide.

According to those news releases, as of July 31 of this year 151 soldiers had apparently taken their own lives.

But a document obtained by CNN shows that the Army has actually counted 163 suicides this year.

The Army counts them in terms of confirmed suicides and “potential” suicides, which are deaths that are suspected of being suicide but the official investigation has not been completed. Most of the time, potential suicides are confirmed as actual suicides.

As for why 12 of the suicides were not included in the news releases, Lt. Col. Laurel Devine explained that sometimes, long after the news releases go out, investigators realize a soldier’s death is at least a “potential” suicide.

The problem may also come from the fact that of the four branches of service, the Army is the most transparent about the issue of suicide.
The Army is the only branch that sends out a monthly news release, while the other services will release the suicide information only when asked.

“Every suicide represents a tragic loss to our Army and the Nation. While the high number of potential suicides in July is discouraging, we are confident our efforts aimed at increasing individuals’ resiliency, while reducing incidence of at-risk and high-risk behavior across the Force, are having a positive impact,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff and its point man on the issue of suicide, said in a statement.  “We absolutely recognize there is much work to be done and remain committed to ensuring our people are cared for and have ready access to the best possible programs and services.”

Chiarelli spends much of his time dealing with the suicide issue and looking for answers, in part because the problem appears to be much worse for the Army than the other branches.

So far in 2011, the Air Force has had 28 suicides, the Marines 21 and the Navy 33. Even though those three services have a combined total force equal to the Army’s, their number of suicides are about half the Army’s 163.

No one knows why it’s worse among the Army other than the fact that it’s the biggest branch of service.

“Any act of suicide is a tragedy,” said Bryan Whitman, a spokesman for the Pentagon. “It’s often very difficult to have any sort of causal relationship to these trends. Each one of them is an individual set of circumstances that range from broken relationship to stress from deployments.”