Massage therapists are no strangers to clients who live with the effects of stress and trauma locked in their tissues. A new report claims that up to 35 percent of U.S. veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),
“A Dynamic Model for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among U.S. Troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” by Michael P. Atkinson of the Naval Postgraduate School and Adam Guetz and Lawrence M. Wein of Stanford University, is running in Management Science, the journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.
The tempo of deployment cycles in the Iraq War is higher than for any war since World War II, the authors write, and military survey data suggest that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among service members.
The authors suggest that the Department of Veterans Affairs improve its delivery of mental health services.
The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences is an international scientific society with 10,000 members, including Nobel Prize laureates, dedicated to applying scientific methods to help improve decision-making, management, and operations.
In April, MASSAGE Magazine reported that military personnel who suffer from poor mental or physical health are up to three times more likely to develop PTSD once deployed. In February the magazine reported U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from increased musculoskeletal injuries.