Mental disorders plague Iraq, Afghanistan vets

Long wait for treatment
While veterans groups don’t have data on the number of veterans encountering problems with the VA, they said veterans are reporting long delays for appointments at the agency’s medical centers.

“If they’re going to keep recruiting anywhere near where they need to be, they’d better take care of the young vets, because everyone is watching,” Rieckhoff said.

One soldier in Virginia Beach, Va., said he was having a hard time sleeping after he returned from Iraq, and was told he’d have to wait two-and-a-half months for an appointment at the VA facility, said Rieckhoff.

Rieckhoff said the Buffalo, N.Y., veterans medical center gave his organization a “wish list” of needed supplies and other expenses, including wheelchairs, rehabilitation equipment and medical monitors.

‘A very ominous trend’
“If the VA is going to see 30 percent of the 1.5 million U.S. service members who have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the VA may expect a total of 450,000 veteran patients from these two wars,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. “This is a very ominous trend, indicating a tidal wave of new patients coming in, and the numbers could go up.”

The Defense Department has made mental health assessments and education programs mandatory for active-duty service members returning from the war. There are several dozen combat stress teams working with military units to prevent and identify stress or other mental health issues.

The department has also put a self-assessment screening on the Internet so military members can evaluate their symptoms.

Dr. Joyce Adkins, the Pentagon’s director of stress management programs, said there has been a slight increase in the number of service members reporting mental health problems or symptoms.

“We’ve done a lot of education for service members at multiple times, to help them understand ... the common problems associated with deployment, the symptoms they might experience and what that might mean,” she said.

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