Wednesday, June 15, 2011

New Support Group for Spouses of Injured Military Troops

Diane Garcia/Shutterstock
A psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington has organized a support group for the spouses of U.S. military personal coping with traumatic brain injury or posttraumatic stress disorder.
U.S. Army Col. Charles Engel, M.C., director of the Deployment Health Clinical Center, set up the program. The armed services are only now coming to grips with the effects that brain injuries and PTSD can have on families.

“We've been at war for a decade at this point and on some level even for those of us who are in it, it’s sort of shocking that we continue to learn as we go,” Engel told CBS News.

For the moment, the support group is a pilot program and open to only 12 persons at a time.

Read more about programs to help military families in Psychiatric News at:
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/10/1.2.full