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Photos New PTSD Clinic uses virtual reality Dr. Alan Maiers (left), the assistant chief of the Warrior Resiliancy Program at Wilford Hall Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, simulates a virtual reality city patrol Aug. 26 for Maj. Monty Baker, the Warrior Resiliancy Program director of research. The virtual reality program is designed to treat servicemembers who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder after returning from combat operations. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Amber Bressler) Download HiRes Wilford Hall opens new PTSD Clinic Posted 9/17/2009 Email story Print story by Linda Frost 59th Medical Wing Public Affairs 9/17/2009 - LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- Wilford Hall Medical Center has a new clinic to treat patients who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. The PTSD Clinic offers evidence-based treatments and a virtual reality program to help Airmen returning from combat operations. PTSD is an anxiety disorder which can occur after a person has been through a traumatic event, according to the National Center for PTSD. "We want to provide the highest quality care possible for patients experiencing PTSD," said Col. (Dr.) Gerald Talcott, 59th Medical Wing Mental Health Squadron commander. As part of the Outpatient Mental Health Clinic, the PTSD Clinic was created in response to the increasing number of service and family members with PTSD. It is timely in that it coincides with the establishment of the Air Force's new Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy, a pilot program initiated at eight Air Force bases. The Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy, using a computer-simulated Virtual Iraq and Virtual Afghanistan, allows Airmen to interact and recreate a traumatic scene and recall sights, sounds, smells, thoughts and feelings. Still in its preliminary stages, the clinic staff started seeing patients Aug. 3, and is led by Dr. Kellie Crowe, staff psychologist. "We are very excited about providing evidence-based treat

2/26/2009 - SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFNS) -- Almost 56,000 Soldiers, Marines, Sailors since October 2001 have been aeromedically evacuated supporting expeditionary operations by the total force team of active-duty, Reserve and Guard Airmen.

1/23/2009 - RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- Air Force Personnel Center officials here will begin to transfer health treatment records of retired and separated active, Guard and Reserve Airmen to the Department of Veterans Affairs Feb. 1.

For the second consecutive year, the Elmendorf hospital was named the best hospital in the Air Force after receiving the Air Force Surgeon General Award Feb. 3.

"The Air Force will begin teaching 'battlefield acupuncture' early next year to physicians deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan," reports the Baltimore Sun's David Wood. "The initiative marks the first high-level endorsement of acupuncture by the traditionally conservative military medical community, officials said."

3/12/2009 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Health care providers at the largest Air Force medical center on the West Coast are using state-of-the-art, interactive human patient simulators as just one of many safety initiatives to improve medical care, the medical center's commander said March 11

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2008 - Hundreds of people in Afghanistan's Zabul province received the gifts of medical care and humanitarian assistance earlier this month. Members of the Zabul Provincial Reconstruction Team, the Afghan National Army and coalition forces participated in a medical operation in a local village.

DENVER - Air Force Academy officials say 30 more freshman cadets have tested positive for swine flu, bringing the total to 97.

Air Force docs use alternative methods of relieving pain.

Keesler Medical Center is the only emergency department in the Air Force that is using electronic medical records.

A team sponsored by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force released a report Thursday stating that mental and traumatic brain injury health issues should be handled by the secretary of defense so they can be more quickly addressed, and recommended that Congress appropriate $350 million to fund a list of other proposals that the team laid out.

The service has 3,463 slots, but just 3,195 nurses, a shortfall of 268, according to Col. Donnalee Sykes, Director of AF Nursing Services. To help alleviate the shortage, the Air Force is offering enlisted airmen the chance to earn their nursing degree and become an officer in exchange for a four-year commitment as a nurse

More than 80 U.S. military personnel contracted malaria last year despite all the medications and precautions made available to the forces, according to a recent Pentagon study.

The Hawaii State Chapter of the American Red Cross announced that a new course, Coping With Deployments: Psychological First Aid for Military Families, is now available. The course, offered free of charge, is open to military family members of active duty, Reserve and National Guard forces, as well as veterans and their families. It is not offered to the general public.

More than 44 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought treatment at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility have been diagnosed with one or more possible mental disorders, according to the agency's most recent summary of veteran health care.

Patients seeking help for facial paralysis have a new treatment option available now offered by doctors at Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) -- A resource sharing agreement between the Nix Health Care System in San Antonio and Wilford Hall Medical Center doctors here will provide increased services to bariatric patients.

The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs are making "great strides" in the ability to electronically share the medical records of troops and former troops under their care who are transitioning between the health care systems of the two departments.

The offensive in southern Afghanistan hasn't come without its casualties for U.S. and NATO forces there. Stripes reporter Drew Brown tells us that over the last few weeks helicopter ambulance crews from the 2nd Platoon "Gypsies" of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade have pulled dozens of wounded - and sometimes dead - U.S., British and Afghan troops from the battlefield. Brown's dispatch takes you to the battlefield and safely back out again with a group of dedicated medevac crewmembers.

Performance-based continuation boards, the Navy's latest end-strength shaping effort, are scheduled to kick off this September and will determine if a sailor is going to be recommended for continuation in service or forced to retire.