A Plan for Better Troop Mental Care
By Anna Mulrine
Wed Sep 26, 11:50 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20070926/ts_usnews/aplanforbettertroopmentalcare
The Department of Defense has released a plan to improve mental-health care for
American troops who are facing multiple tours in war zones.
The report lays out a "road map for change" in an effort to "put psychological
health and fitness on an equal footing with physical health and fitness." The
recommendations address findings from a report released earlier this year that
found that troops going to war face increasing levels of anxiety and depression
with each successive deployment, with shorter "dwell times," or times at home
with their families.
"We recognize that the Global War on Terror has raised questions about the
adequacy of psychological health services ... established by DOD during the Cold
War era," the report notes. "We accept the responsibility to make changes needed
to provide the highest possible level of care and support to our military
community."
The recommendations range from plans for a public education campaign to dispel
the stigma of mental-health care (the first of the report's 95 recommendations)
to a suggestion for how better to integrate mental-health professionals into
primary-care settings such as clinics. The DOD aims to complete most of the
recommendations by May 2008.
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