This is just more evidence of what our military members give for their country. They serve, and keep on serving after they've gotten out. Their suffering can last an entire lifetime, physical and/or mental pain. I sure do hope to hell that the Nation keeps this in mind and doesn't mess with Veterans benefits or entitlements. If anyone deserves it from this country, it is the Veterans, much more so than congressmen or senators. By the way, they should be made to use the VA or military hospital systems while they are in office. Keep them in touch with the real people who pay the price for their incompetence and willingness to fight. It might make them more careful about such decisions in the future and it would keep their medical care costs down for the government. It would be nice to ensure that they face those who bear the burdens of their decisions, since they and THEIR children don't.

This article and the study behind is disrespectful of combat veterans and worse slanderous. The 4 percent difference of occurrence of dementia between populations is hardly statistically valid. Even if its true, the study especially its publication does more damage than good. Think how this article make older veterans like me feel. First I am likely crazy (PTSD), because I have punched holes in the wall (like many other males who are not veterans. I don’t know how that can be used to diagnose anything). Now I am going to lose my mind. I thought psychiatry was supposed to help people.

Since Viet Nam veterans have faced a continuous drum beat of negativity, because contemporary American culture has turned against us. How would you react to being called a “baby killer”? This is especially if you like me had actually done it through momentary incompetence. At first we were portrayed in book and films as villains (e.g. The second Dirty Harry or even Avatar). Later we were forgiven because after all we are crazy. PTSD was invented around 1980 to explain our anger at the way we had been treated after we came home.

Combat is an alienating experience that makes it hard to return to ordinary life. It can make you feel unclean and unworthy. Unless you have been there, ordinary people can not understand. For example people get excited over combat decorations, but often they are hard to be proud of since they are paid for by death and injury. I have four citations for bravery that cost five men their lives and 16 the pain and suffering of wounds. The more dead in the fights, the higher the medal received.

The sad thing is that coming home often increases the alienation. My generation of veterans was faced with open hostility especially from people who decided not to get involved. The current generation of veterans is faced with well meaning psychiatrists who publish articles like this. Even worse by news organizations that go out of their way to find every negative thing about them that can be discovered. If every violent act committed by returning veteran is published, how long does it take before they are all tarred with the same brush.

Veterans need the love and respect of a grateful nation, not psychiatrists. Studying veterans is laudable, but publication of these studies can be very damaging.

I would say more, but I have the urge to go beat on a wall, but maybe I should not. I can remember were the 2x4 are.

from another Viet Nam era vet: I'm glad you made it back, but they just hit us with another burden that we've known about yet the gov has denied. What are you gonna do about this, it's another 10, 20, or 30 years on a life sentence, most of us were handed when we were 20 years old. Only this one hooks your NOK up with you. How's that for condemning a generation for life.

I agree with the previous poster, but for other reasons. This newest generation of combat veterans has the technology to determine the extent of their traumatic brain injuried from blasts and concussive exposure. Interestingly, the symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PTSD are nearly identical. How does one make the distinction? by looking at images of the brain - NOT by interviewing and sorting statistics.

Does anyone really believe blast and concussion injuries to the brain are a novelty of this latest military action? It is utterly appalling that "psychiatric" professionals get musings like "stress may cause changes in the hippocampus" when actual patient examination and evaluation could DEMONSTRATE damage to the hippocampus as a result of blast and concussive injuries, but they would rather sit in their nice clean offices analyzing and cross analyzing interviews and statistics than go back to school to learn what actual physical injuries are, the symptoms and consequences that result, and what THAT means statistically when drugged over rather than treated.

Psychiatry persists in fabricating weakness in the patient rather than treating underlying physiological damage and illness. For that, they should be excised from all things medical and find their rightful place as fiction novelists. What they do to our veterans in the name of pseudo science is nauseating, if not criminal.

If they were REALLY interested in determining facts about PTSD and dementia, they would not be using questionnaires - they would be using SPECT scans to map the damage and creating a statistical model to determine which areas of the brain are DAMAGED to produce the symptoms of PTSD and dementia - and then get those veterans into the nearest hyperbaric oxygen treatment program and save them from the horrors of dementia.

I don't think many people understand what the Viet Nan veteran has gone through. Over seas or at home , they are the only ones who can really and truly know if they need help with PTSD not a psychiatrist. They should be looking at people in washington how really need HELP!!!

"Twelve months after returning home, Dr. Jeffrey L. Thomas of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland and his colleagues found, the National Guard soldiers' symptoms had actually gotten worse, while they remained stable for the active-duty soldiers."

My guess is that those on active duty have a reason to be twitchy. When you get home, you need to shut that part of the brain down....but it's not that easy. The brain looks for the same dangers, which aren't there anymore. So, it looks harder...turning a loud clap into gunfire.Goes downhill from there when you can't get the care needed.

Promise the world to our future soldiers. Rip it away from them when they aren't useful anymore. Our soldiers need to be respected (place to live, food, insurance, money) while they are still ALIVE & not just give them one hell of a funeral when they leave this earth.

#REALLY? Is it the PTSD which makes these people "dementia prone"?

Or is the YEARS spent medicated at the hands of VA psychiatrists which cause the dementia?

Because at the core the vet DOESN'T CARE. He only knows that when called he preformed and then when it happened to be the time when he needed something he was left disappointed by a system more involved with denying claims and cutting costs or medicating to sedate rather than address the causes

This is just more evidence of what our military members give for their country..

&

I thought psychiatry was supposed to help people

Sadly both statements are true but have been commandeered by those looking to make profits or better stats. And NEITHER have the vet well being or betterment as its primary focus.

Well said by all of you! Welcome home brothers.

My husband is 59 yrs. of age. He celebrated his birthday in a nursing home due to primary progressive aphasia. He spent 6 months there. He is currently in the VA Hosp. Phila. He had to be taken off all drugs they were giving him, he was bedridden for 3 months. He is now able to walk and feed himself but the dementia is still there and so is the aphasia. He also suffers from typw 2 diabetes. Does anyone else suffer from these conditions. I would love to hear from you

I am a vet from Korea. I was in the Dmz got combat pay and have agent orange. Noticed ptsd in 1991 and had alot of personal problems. Don't know if it was the A/O or ptsd that causing my anxiety attacks,depression or hostility. It should be mandatory that every vet be given an evaluation on release. The prison has a lot of vets and many are homeless because they can't funtion around regular people.