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Treatment for servicemembers suffering from psychological trauma really is a brave new world. Before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was little research on effective treatments and not much pressure to add to what existed, said Army Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Loree Sutton, director of the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. Sutton, at a Warrior Resilience Conference here, said her office has been working with the services to develop treatment programs and is researching best medical practices. But the effort isn't a simple matter of an open checkbook; results count.

Feturing TAPS offers peer-based support, crisis care, casualty casework assistance and grief and trauma resources, all free. Unlike most programs offered through the military, TAPS provides ongoing help to anyone grieving the death of a loved one in the military, regardless of the relationship to the deceased, where they live, or the circumstances of the death.

A survey of soldiers returning from Iraq found that as many as 1 in 4 had some level of hearing damage. A study in the American Journal of Audiology found that soldiers deployed to Iraq from April 2003 to March 2004 were 50 times more likely to suffer acoustic trauma than those who were not deployed. Such statistics have prompted the military to rethink how it handles hearing cases, and Ft. Carson, Colo., is on the front lines of that change.

A new study of US veterans suggests that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and metabolic syndrome, the group of symptoms that increases heart disease and diabetes risk, may be linked. Dr Pia S. Heppner of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Health System in La Jolla and her colleagues found that the more severe a person's PTSD symptoms, the more likely they were to also have the metabolic syndrome. Evidence is mounting that exposure to trauma can worsen physical health, including increasing heart disease risk, Heppner and her team note in the journal BMC Medicine.

Medical personnel headed overseas, plus students here, learn to face emergencies, make decisions and take action.

About one out of seven female veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq who visit a Veterans Affairs center for medical care report being a victim of sexual assault or harassment during military duty, a study reports today.

Hearing the sounds of wounded soldiers crying for help and the staccato of nearby gunfire, Illinois National Guard Capt. Thomas Kim briefly flashed back to a war zone, but his mind quickly returned to the combat trauma simulation being held in a classroom at Rush University Medical Center .

For the past year, almost 7,000 sensors mounted on helmets in Iraq and Afghanistan have been collecting data on blast trauma from improvised explosive devices.

Center for Study of Traumatic Stress: Courage to Care Each installment includes a fact sheet for healthcare professionals and a fact sheet for families and patients. Courage to Care can be distributed in office waiting areas, or on an organization's website.