A tremendous cost

Puget Sound PTSD specialists call the disorder one of the "hidden wounds of war." It can't be stitched up, earns no Purple Heart and can fester over a lifetime.
The specialists predict the trickle of affected soldiers from Iraq now coming into clinics will turn into a flood, with serious consequences for strained Veterans Affairs budgets and for taxpayers who foot disability bills.
"We hear about the thousands of injuries -- brain injuries, leg injuries, arm injuries -- but rarely do we hear about the psychological casualties in war," said PTSD expert Dr. Evan Kanter, a neuroscientist and staff psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle
"There will be tens of thousands of these, and the cost of that will be tremendous."
An Army survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 1 said 15.6 percent to 17.1 percent of returning soldiers from Iraq exhibited signs of anxiety, major depression or other mental health problems. A new study of 1,300 Fort Bragg paratroopers who took part in the Iraq invasion echoed the findings, showing 17.4 percent exhibited PTSD symptoms.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/188143_ptsd27.html