By: Lt. Gen (Ret.) Romeo Dallair, Special Contributor to the Globe and Mail
When I learned the news last week about the Canadian veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who unsuccessfully sought help and then, overcome by his operational injury, apparently killed his family and himself – I was beyond distraught. The catastrophic case of Lionel Desmond could not serve as a more powerful warning to the senior policy-makers in our country. But will it be enough?
I have spent decades fighting for injured veterans, including myself, as we continue to destroy ourselves and too many others in our wake. The wars that soldiers fight do not end when we return home; they stay alive within us, and without urgent treatment our injury – PTSD – will destroy us. Just like an injury to the body will become gangrenous, fester, and infect, so too does this injury to our brains and moral centre. But unlike most other injuries, PTSD deeply affects the entire family as well; in this case, fatally.
The scale of the damage and the depth of the destruction that deployment in today’s complex conflicts can wreak is almost incomprehensible. Lionel Desmond’s actions were reprehensible; but, so too was the lack of care he and his family received when he returned from his mission. This was a soldier lost in a system that is grievously inadequate to handle the load and complexity of these injuries or to provide the urgent support required for vets and their families. With a chain of command out of the picture, and an underfunded veterans department strangled by regulations, our system is wholly unprepared for this postwar demand. As a result, injured vets, both in and out of service, continue to be shunted aside, falling into the support cracks, flailing for help.
This is an urgent message that must be heeded: The casualties of past wars continue to mount even as we are preparing for the next conflict. Military-weapons upgrades, the introduction of new tactics, and preparations of troops to face the next threat are all getting a heavy dose of essential funding and priority. However, penny-pinching resource allocations and prohibitive restrictions around support to casualties of the last fight clearly have devastating effects. Care for our current injured members sets the start line for the total commitment of our soldiers and their families for the next round in the defence of peace and human rights.
Nova Scotia – where Lionel Desmond lived and where I am now based with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative – is home to a disproportionate number of veterans. To utilize the strengths and skills of injured vets, while giving them a second chance to serve, the Dallaire Initiative has instituted a training program – through which Canadian military veterans assist in the dissemination of a new doctrine to reduce battle casualties and help eradicate the use of child soldiers globally.
The Canadian government would do well to follow suit: to seek out injured veterans and provide them whatever tools they require to rejoin society after their missions, for all our sakes.
As I wrote in my last book:
“I find myself empty now, at a loss for words. Over the past two years, I mustered what I had left to share the details of my own struggles with PTSD. I turn to those pages now.
It was not easy for me to share my vulnerabilities so candidly, but the dark side of living with PTSD has to come out. If it does not, the world will continue to hear of us only when we commit suicide. … Courageous soldiers serving in today’s difficult and ethically ambiguous missions can and should be treated for PTSD at its first signs; the Forces should anticipate the need for treatment in order to head the damage off, not just wait until a soldier is desperate enough to seek help. And we – meaning all of us – need to shoulder our share of the burden and recognize the contribution made by our soldiers when they undertake such missions on behalf of humanity. We need to insist that they are supported when they come home.
The brain is as vital to life as any organ in the human body. To treat an injury to the brain as less urgent, less in need of care and compassion than other, more obvious types of injury is misguided and ignorant. Our efforts to treat our veterans with PTSD must be comparable to our efforts to repair damaged hearts, provide timely kidney transplants, avoid amputations or restore eyesight. … Only when we truly understand the injury and take action to mitigate its impact will we be able to say that we recognize the real costs of peacekeeping, peacemaking and war.”
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Lieutenant-General (ret) Roméo Dallaire is the founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative at Dalhousie University, and author of Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD.
Showing posts with label Mental Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mental Health. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Not helping veterans could turn into national security problem: Military Ombudsman
By: Rebecca Joseph and Amy Minsky, Global News
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Surge of Afghanistan veterans to test Canadian mental-health care resource
By: LES PERREAUX, Globe and Mail
For the first time since Canada went to war in Afghanistan, the number of soldiers who served there and retired will outnumber those still in the military, a tipping point that will shift a significant mental-health care burden from the army to overstretched provinces and Veterans Affairs.
As of late November, 22,059 of the 40,026 military personnel who served in Afghanistan remained in the Canadian Armed Forces, according to the military. At the recent rate of retirement, the number will slip below half in 2017 and fall rapidly from there.
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says his department is ready for the sudden increase in volume of former soldiers with recent combat experience. Advocates and mental-health experts doubt the department’s preparedness, noting civilian patients already face long waits for mental-health treatment.
A Globe and Mail investigation into suicide by men and women who served in the Afghanistan war confirmed 71 cases up until November. Among those people, 15 had been released from the military, but advocates like Mr. Harding say many more than 15 have died this way and gone undocumented. A study of Canadian veterans using data from a 2010 survey found 6 per cent had suicidal thoughts. Other surveys have found 25 per cent have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or drug and alcohol abuse.
The Canadian Armed Forces invest heavily in the well-being of its personnel and has made progress screening, tracking and studying mental-health issues in the ranks – particularly suicide rates that seem to be growing among soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. But care shifts to overburdened provincial and territorial health-care providers as people leave the military and are no longer CAF’s responsibility. Meanwhile, Veterans Affairs still has no comprehensive system for monitoring veterans’ health.
“The day a soldier takes off the uniform, they cease to be systematically tracked,” said Brian Harding, a veterans’ advocate who is a member of Mr. Hehr’s mental-health advisory group. For several years, Mr. Harding and others have been pushing Veterans Affairs to produce data on the scope of the suicides. “Canada did not previously have a reckoning of mental-health issues among veterans in any sizable cohort in modern history. We didn’t have Vietnam. We had to deal with this fresh,” Mr. Harding said.
Veterans Affairs officials say they are in contact with 250,000 of Canada’s 600,000 military veterans, most of whom never served in Afghanistan. Under current legislation, veterans must initiate contact with the department. Veterans Affairs is setting up a system to collect statistical data on suicide among veterans from outside agencies. Details have not been released, and the first annual report is not expected until late 2017.
Veterans Affairs’ share of caring for Afghanistan combat veterans has accelerated rapidly in recent years. In 2013, only 21 per cent of soldiers who served in Afghanistan had been released. In 2016, that figure reached 45 per cent, and will pass 50 per cent by the fall of 2017.
Mr. Hehr said his department is ready. “I believe we are,” he said in a recent interview. “We understand that the people who served in Afghanistan will be coming out. We started mapping this out, that many will need mental-health support and physical support when they leave their service.”
While Veterans Affairs cannot force veterans to get help or submit to public-health tracking, he said the department must continue to improve communications. “What we have to do as Veterans Affairs Canada is say we’re open for business,” he said. “We’re here for support. But we can’t force anybody to come through our doors.”
Soldiers have a host of health advantages over veterans and other civilians, Mr. Harding said. “They have easy access to health care, better access to mental-health resources than civilians, and ready access to peer support,” he said. “They get specific training in mental resilience. Leadership is trained to watch for signs of struggle. Sick-leave benefits are excellent.”
Five veteran suicide cases examined in detail in The Globe investigation bolster the point that access to services drops when soldiers retire. The parents of retired private Tyler Hulme described how he overdosed on medication about a month after his release. He had been told it would be a four-month wait for a civilian psychiatrist in Ontario. Retired sergeant Raynald Côté did seek and receive treatment, but fell into isolation and despair with little of the peer support he had in the army.
Retired sergeant Claude Emond had a civilian psychiatrist and massage therapist. “He had services, but when he’d come back from sessions, he felt it was superficial. They didn’t understand his military background and seemed to just be checking boxes,” said his wife, Sylvie Duchesne.
Veterans Affairs provides an array of services from 1-800 crisis hotlines to education funding and mental-health treatment. The department started funding new clinics for operational stress injury in major centres in 2007. They have slowly spread across the country and are operated by provincial health authorities.
Most front-line services are provided by insurance companies, private contractors, service groups and the health ministries and social services of the provinces and territories. The system can be a bewildering tangle for vets.
Alexandra Heber, the newly appointed chief psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs, said untangling that web is one of the keys to planning for the biggest cohort of combat vets since the Korean War in the 1950s. “Over the years, we’ve had one service added on top of something else and something else. We are creating more organization for all of those services,” she said.
But Deborah Harrison, a psychologist and retired professor, has studied the effects of deployment on military families and recently co-wrote a book on military children called Growing up in Armyville. She says Canada is unprepared for the mental-health burden the war will place on provinces already short of psychiatrists, psychologists and other providers.
“We don’t always grasp how historically significant the Afghanistan deployment was,” Dr. Harrison said. “It was the longest military engagement in Canadian history. It was a very dangerous deployment and much more stressful for soldiers and families than previous deployments.
“It was known there would be casualties, but nobody was prepared for the unmeetable demands on Canada’s mental-health care system from that deployment.”
For the first time since Canada went to war in Afghanistan, the number of soldiers who served there and retired will outnumber those still in the military, a tipping point that will shift a significant mental-health care burden from the army to overstretched provinces and Veterans Affairs.
 |
| A Canadian soldier walks during a patrol at the village of Bazaar e Panjwai in Kandahar May 29, 2009. (JORGE SILVA/REUTERS) |
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says his department is ready for the sudden increase in volume of former soldiers with recent combat experience. Advocates and mental-health experts doubt the department’s preparedness, noting civilian patients already face long waits for mental-health treatment.
A Globe and Mail investigation into suicide by men and women who served in the Afghanistan war confirmed 71 cases up until November. Among those people, 15 had been released from the military, but advocates like Mr. Harding say many more than 15 have died this way and gone undocumented. A study of Canadian veterans using data from a 2010 survey found 6 per cent had suicidal thoughts. Other surveys have found 25 per cent have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or drug and alcohol abuse.
The Canadian Armed Forces invest heavily in the well-being of its personnel and has made progress screening, tracking and studying mental-health issues in the ranks – particularly suicide rates that seem to be growing among soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. But care shifts to overburdened provincial and territorial health-care providers as people leave the military and are no longer CAF’s responsibility. Meanwhile, Veterans Affairs still has no comprehensive system for monitoring veterans’ health.
“The day a soldier takes off the uniform, they cease to be systematically tracked,” said Brian Harding, a veterans’ advocate who is a member of Mr. Hehr’s mental-health advisory group. For several years, Mr. Harding and others have been pushing Veterans Affairs to produce data on the scope of the suicides. “Canada did not previously have a reckoning of mental-health issues among veterans in any sizable cohort in modern history. We didn’t have Vietnam. We had to deal with this fresh,” Mr. Harding said.
Veterans Affairs officials say they are in contact with 250,000 of Canada’s 600,000 military veterans, most of whom never served in Afghanistan. Under current legislation, veterans must initiate contact with the department. Veterans Affairs is setting up a system to collect statistical data on suicide among veterans from outside agencies. Details have not been released, and the first annual report is not expected until late 2017.
Veterans Affairs’ share of caring for Afghanistan combat veterans has accelerated rapidly in recent years. In 2013, only 21 per cent of soldiers who served in Afghanistan had been released. In 2016, that figure reached 45 per cent, and will pass 50 per cent by the fall of 2017.
Mr. Hehr said his department is ready. “I believe we are,” he said in a recent interview. “We understand that the people who served in Afghanistan will be coming out. We started mapping this out, that many will need mental-health support and physical support when they leave their service.”
While Veterans Affairs cannot force veterans to get help or submit to public-health tracking, he said the department must continue to improve communications. “What we have to do as Veterans Affairs Canada is say we’re open for business,” he said. “We’re here for support. But we can’t force anybody to come through our doors.”
Soldiers have a host of health advantages over veterans and other civilians, Mr. Harding said. “They have easy access to health care, better access to mental-health resources than civilians, and ready access to peer support,” he said. “They get specific training in mental resilience. Leadership is trained to watch for signs of struggle. Sick-leave benefits are excellent.”
Five veteran suicide cases examined in detail in The Globe investigation bolster the point that access to services drops when soldiers retire. The parents of retired private Tyler Hulme described how he overdosed on medication about a month after his release. He had been told it would be a four-month wait for a civilian psychiatrist in Ontario. Retired sergeant Raynald Côté did seek and receive treatment, but fell into isolation and despair with little of the peer support he had in the army.
Retired sergeant Claude Emond had a civilian psychiatrist and massage therapist. “He had services, but when he’d come back from sessions, he felt it was superficial. They didn’t understand his military background and seemed to just be checking boxes,” said his wife, Sylvie Duchesne.
Veterans Affairs provides an array of services from 1-800 crisis hotlines to education funding and mental-health treatment. The department started funding new clinics for operational stress injury in major centres in 2007. They have slowly spread across the country and are operated by provincial health authorities.
Most front-line services are provided by insurance companies, private contractors, service groups and the health ministries and social services of the provinces and territories. The system can be a bewildering tangle for vets.
Alexandra Heber, the newly appointed chief psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs, said untangling that web is one of the keys to planning for the biggest cohort of combat vets since the Korean War in the 1950s. “Over the years, we’ve had one service added on top of something else and something else. We are creating more organization for all of those services,” she said.
But Deborah Harrison, a psychologist and retired professor, has studied the effects of deployment on military families and recently co-wrote a book on military children called Growing up in Armyville. She says Canada is unprepared for the mental-health burden the war will place on provinces already short of psychiatrists, psychologists and other providers.
“We don’t always grasp how historically significant the Afghanistan deployment was,” Dr. Harrison said. “It was the longest military engagement in Canadian history. It was a very dangerous deployment and much more stressful for soldiers and families than previous deployments.
“It was known there would be casualties, but nobody was prepared for the unmeetable demands on Canada’s mental-health care system from that deployment.”
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Ottawa defends CAF's Fit-to-Serve rule
RENATA D’ALIESIO, The Globe and Mail
The federal government is defending the Canadian Forces’ fit-to-serve rule, which has led to the expulsion of nearly 7,000 ill and wounded members over the past five years – many of them Afghanistan war veterans who wanted to remain in the military.
The policy known as universality of service has long been criticized as too stringent, forcing out members as they cope with job-related injuries and mental illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans’ advocates argue the rule – which requires soldiers, sailors and air force personnel be capable of deploying at all times – deters some ill soldiers from seeking help, because they worry they’ll be discharged from the military.
A Canadian Forces working group has been studying the issue for more than two years, but change does not appear on the horizon. In a statement of defence submitted in response to legal action from injured veteran Louise Groulx, the Liberal government maintains the military’s employment standard is not discriminatory and is supported by the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Lawyers for the government also argue that the rule doesn’t demand military members be capable of serving in combat. Rather, they need to be “fit, employable without significant limitations and deployable for operational duties.”
Ottawa’s legal position buttresses comments made by General Jonathan Vance, the Chief of the Defence Staff, earlier this year. In May, Gen. Vance told The Globe and Mail there are many reasons the standard cannot be dropped, even for those who have been permanently injured in the line of duty, such as on the Afghanistan mission, but are still able to perform a job in Canada. “We are a small armed forces; everybody’s got to be able to pitch in all the way.”
Ms. Groulx’s lawyer, Corey Shefman, called the requirement that all 60,000-plus regular force members be ready to deploy any time “ridiculous.” He noted that there are many military jobs that don’t involve serving overseas.
“The Canadian Forces, like every other employer, needs to make reasonable accommodation for these soldiers and veterans,” Mr. Shefman said. “The Canadian people and the Canadian government owe a duty to our soldiers and our veterans for the risks that they put themselves in every day and for the service that they are giving to the country.”
Before becoming an air force instructor and aeromedical technician, Ms. Groulx was a medic and served in Haiti in 1995, part of Canada’s contribution to a United Nations mission. Her last job, which was based in Winnipeg, involved teaching pilots how to deal with medical emergencies and was unlikely to ever require her to work overseas, Mr. Shefman said.
The air-force instructor suffered a serious spinal injury in 1999, while participating in a military baseball game. She underwent six surgeries over 14 years, but was left with mobility problems, according to her statement of claim. She also experienced depression and PTSD, the claim adds.
While she returned to work and wanted to remain in the Forces, she was medically released in June, 2009. The retired master corporal’s lawsuit alleges the Forces’ universality-of-service rule violated her Charter rights.
“The fact is this is the 21st century. The American air force managed to put a double-amputee pilot back in his fighter jet and flying missions. If they can do that, I don’t see any good reasons why the Canadian Forces can’t put a person like Louise … in her non-deployable position,” Mr. Shefman contended.
The Forces’ universality-of-service working group was created in response to concerns that the rule was forcing too many ill and wounded members out of the military. The group last met in September to review findings from focus groups, and is scheduled to meet again in November, said military spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande. The focus groups helped identify “common and essential minimum operational standards” for Forces members, she said. It’s unclear when the review will wrap up.
Medical discharges hit a 17-year high in the 2014 fiscal year, with 1,908 personnel deemed unfit for duty – a 52-per cent increase from the year before, according to figures provided by the Forces. Last fiscal year, 1,533 members were dismissed from the military for medical reasons, which is far higher than before the Afghanistan war. Between 1999 and 2002, no more than 722 personnel were expelled in a single year.
The federal government is defending the Canadian Forces’ fit-to-serve rule, which has led to the expulsion of nearly 7,000 ill and wounded members over the past five years – many of them Afghanistan war veterans who wanted to remain in the military.
The policy known as universality of service has long been criticized as too stringent, forcing out members as they cope with job-related injuries and mental illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans’ advocates argue the rule – which requires soldiers, sailors and air force personnel be capable of deploying at all times – deters some ill soldiers from seeking help, because they worry they’ll be discharged from the military.
A Canadian Forces working group has been studying the issue for more than two years, but change does not appear on the horizon. In a statement of defence submitted in response to legal action from injured veteran Louise Groulx, the Liberal government maintains the military’s employment standard is not discriminatory and is supported by the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Lawyers for the government also argue that the rule doesn’t demand military members be capable of serving in combat. Rather, they need to be “fit, employable without significant limitations and deployable for operational duties.”
Ottawa’s legal position buttresses comments made by General Jonathan Vance, the Chief of the Defence Staff, earlier this year. In May, Gen. Vance told The Globe and Mail there are many reasons the standard cannot be dropped, even for those who have been permanently injured in the line of duty, such as on the Afghanistan mission, but are still able to perform a job in Canada. “We are a small armed forces; everybody’s got to be able to pitch in all the way.”
Ms. Groulx’s lawyer, Corey Shefman, called the requirement that all 60,000-plus regular force members be ready to deploy any time “ridiculous.” He noted that there are many military jobs that don’t involve serving overseas.
“The Canadian Forces, like every other employer, needs to make reasonable accommodation for these soldiers and veterans,” Mr. Shefman said. “The Canadian people and the Canadian government owe a duty to our soldiers and our veterans for the risks that they put themselves in every day and for the service that they are giving to the country.”
Before becoming an air force instructor and aeromedical technician, Ms. Groulx was a medic and served in Haiti in 1995, part of Canada’s contribution to a United Nations mission. Her last job, which was based in Winnipeg, involved teaching pilots how to deal with medical emergencies and was unlikely to ever require her to work overseas, Mr. Shefman said.
The air-force instructor suffered a serious spinal injury in 1999, while participating in a military baseball game. She underwent six surgeries over 14 years, but was left with mobility problems, according to her statement of claim. She also experienced depression and PTSD, the claim adds.
While she returned to work and wanted to remain in the Forces, she was medically released in June, 2009. The retired master corporal’s lawsuit alleges the Forces’ universality-of-service rule violated her Charter rights.
“The fact is this is the 21st century. The American air force managed to put a double-amputee pilot back in his fighter jet and flying missions. If they can do that, I don’t see any good reasons why the Canadian Forces can’t put a person like Louise … in her non-deployable position,” Mr. Shefman contended.
The Forces’ universality-of-service working group was created in response to concerns that the rule was forcing too many ill and wounded members out of the military. The group last met in September to review findings from focus groups, and is scheduled to meet again in November, said military spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande. The focus groups helped identify “common and essential minimum operational standards” for Forces members, she said. It’s unclear when the review will wrap up.
Medical discharges hit a 17-year high in the 2014 fiscal year, with 1,908 personnel deemed unfit for duty – a 52-per cent increase from the year before, according to figures provided by the Forces. Last fiscal year, 1,533 members were dismissed from the military for medical reasons, which is far higher than before the Afghanistan war. Between 1999 and 2002, no more than 722 personnel were expelled in a single year.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Virtual Reality Training for Sustaining Astronauts’ mental health at CFS Alert
News Article / January 6, 2016, DND Press Release
From the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College
A team of international investigators is testing a new virtual reality technology at Canadian Forces Station Alert, Nunavut, this winter. The project, which began last week, will see if simulated natural beauty can relieve astronauts’ psychological challenges of living in the isolated confines of deep space travel.
Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert, which belongs to the Royal Canadian Air Force, is the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world, only 817 kilometres from the geographic North Pole.
The team is led by Jay Buckey, a physician and former astronaut. The project’s primary goal is to find “effective ways to maintain and even improve astronauts’ psychological health on long-duration space flights” to Mars and elsewhere, explains Dr. Buckey, who is the project’s principal investigator and a professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.
The virtual reality technology will bring nature’s restorative sights and sounds to the inhabitants of CFS Alert, immersing them in virtual reality scenes from New Hampshire’s beautiful mountains, produced by Dartmouth’s Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation (DALI) lab, and picturesque landscapes from Australia and Ireland. The CFS Alert personnel will also experience virtual scenes and sounds called “Virtual Wembury”, produced by Professor Robert Stone at the University of Birmingham, that allows users to navigate Wembury, a seaside village in the United Kingdom. Virtual Wembury is currently part of a research program in the UK sponsored by the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, evaluating the impact of virtual scenes of nature on the recovery patterns of patients within the Intensive Care Unit of Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
At the project’s conclusion, the CFS Alert personnel will be asked to rate the virtual scenes for their realism and immersion, which scenes they preferred and why, and how the scenes affected their mood and stress.
The Dartmouth-led project includes Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), an agency of Canada’s Department of National Defence, and is supported by NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). The research is designed to enhance psychological health in space, but it is useful in other settings such as intensive care units.
Since 2001, in a separate project, Dartmouth, Harvard and other institutions have been developing the “Virtual Space Station”, an interactive suite of software programs designed to maintain astronauts’ psychological health and to resolve interpersonal conflicts on long-duration missions, with support from NSBRI. The mental challenges of long-duration space flights have been studied for years, but astronauts currently have audio and video access to ground support only when communication links are available. On longer missions like one to Mars, transmission delays will make real-time therapy problematic. Computer-based treatment offers an autonomous way to address these important problems. The current Virtual Space Station system includes self-guided multimedia programs on depression, conflict and stress management.
From the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College
A team of international investigators is testing a new virtual reality technology at Canadian Forces Station Alert, Nunavut, this winter. The project, which began last week, will see if simulated natural beauty can relieve astronauts’ psychological challenges of living in the isolated confines of deep space travel.
The team is led by Jay Buckey, a physician and former astronaut. The project’s primary goal is to find “effective ways to maintain and even improve astronauts’ psychological health on long-duration space flights” to Mars and elsewhere, explains Dr. Buckey, who is the project’s principal investigator and a professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine.
The virtual reality technology will bring nature’s restorative sights and sounds to the inhabitants of CFS Alert, immersing them in virtual reality scenes from New Hampshire’s beautiful mountains, produced by Dartmouth’s Digital Arts Leadership and Innovation (DALI) lab, and picturesque landscapes from Australia and Ireland. The CFS Alert personnel will also experience virtual scenes and sounds called “Virtual Wembury”, produced by Professor Robert Stone at the University of Birmingham, that allows users to navigate Wembury, a seaside village in the United Kingdom. Virtual Wembury is currently part of a research program in the UK sponsored by the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, evaluating the impact of virtual scenes of nature on the recovery patterns of patients within the Intensive Care Unit of Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
At the project’s conclusion, the CFS Alert personnel will be asked to rate the virtual scenes for their realism and immersion, which scenes they preferred and why, and how the scenes affected their mood and stress.
The Dartmouth-led project includes Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), an agency of Canada’s Department of National Defence, and is supported by NASA’s National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI). The research is designed to enhance psychological health in space, but it is useful in other settings such as intensive care units.
Since 2001, in a separate project, Dartmouth, Harvard and other institutions have been developing the “Virtual Space Station”, an interactive suite of software programs designed to maintain astronauts’ psychological health and to resolve interpersonal conflicts on long-duration missions, with support from NSBRI. The mental challenges of long-duration space flights have been studied for years, but astronauts currently have audio and video access to ground support only when communication links are available. On longer missions like one to Mars, transmission delays will make real-time therapy problematic. Computer-based treatment offers an autonomous way to address these important problems. The current Virtual Space Station system includes self-guided multimedia programs on depression, conflict and stress management.
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