Troops' stress disorders rise sharply
Officials said 40,000 had been diagnosed by the military since '03 but say there are many more.
WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. troops diagnosed by the military with post-traumatic stress disorder jumped nearly 50 percent in 2007 over the previous year, as more of them served lengthy and repeated combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pentagon data released yesterday show.
The increase brings to nearly 40,000 the total number of U.S. troops diagnosed by the military with PTSD after serving in one of the two conflicts from 2003 to 2007.
The vast majority served in the Army, which had a total of 28,365 cases, including more than 10,000 last year. The Marines had the second-highest number, with 5,581 total and 2,114 last year.
The Air Force and Navy had fewer than 1,000 cases each last year, according to the data from the Office of the Surgeon General on a chart released by the Army.
Military officials cautioned that the numbers represent only a small fraction of all service members who have the disorder, because not included are those diagnosed by the Veterans Administration or civilian caregivers, and those who avoid seeking care out of concern that they will face stigma and hurt their careers.
"We're in our infancy right now of fully knowing what the extent of this is," Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, told defense reporters yesterday.
Service members with PTSD often feel constantly under threat, experience nightmares or intrusive thoughts in which they relive the horrors of losing comrades or being wounded in combat, and grow emotionally numb, leading their intimate relationships to suffer.
The military, like the country as a whole, faces a shortage of specialized health personnel to treat the growing ranks of troops with the disorder.
"As a nation . . . our mental-health facilities and access to mental-health providers is not adequate for the need right now," Schoomaker said. The Army was seeking to narrow the gap, he said, and had hired 180 of a planned 300 additional mental-health specialists.
The incidence of PTSD grew last year as more U.S. troops were exposed to combat - with force levels reaching more than 170,000 in Iraq and 27,000 in Afghanistan.
Also contributing were a lengthening of war-zone rotations from 12 months to 15, and the rise in the number of troops serving repeated tours, which sharply increases the likelihood troops will experience PTSD symptoms.
The military's ability to track the cases has also improved with the creation of an electronic medical-care record system in 2004, Schoomaker said.
As many as 30 percent of deployed soldiers suffer symptoms of the disorder PTSD, but the majority are expected to improve with early and appropriate treatment, he said.