USA — Services, VA Use Technology for Stress, Resilience Outreach

WASHINGTON — The mil­i­tary ser­vices and the Vet­er­ans Health Admin­is­tra­tion of the Vet­er­ans Affairs Depart­ment increas­ing­ly use dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy to reach out to iden­ti­fy and treat ser­vice­mem­bers with trau­mat­ic brain injuries and post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der.

The sec­ond-rank­ing offi­cers of each of the four ser­vices and a senior VHA leader out­lined for the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee today the many pro­grams and deliv­ery meth­ods they are using to reach ser­vice­mem­bers who may have mild brain injuries or PTSD

Increas­ing­ly, they are turn­ing toward the “vir­tu­al” inter­ven­tion of the Inter­net and dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, they said. 

“This gen­er­a­tion some­times opens up much bet­ter through Skype” and oth­er dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy “than by sit­ting across the table” from a men­tal health care provider, said Gen. Peter W. Chiarel­li, Army vice chief of staff. 

Some 780,000 sol­diers have respond­ed to the Army’s Inter­net-based Glob­al Access­ing Tool to mea­sure resilience, and the ser­vice plans to expand its Web out­reach, Chiarel­li said. Also, the Army uses an Inter­net-based men­tal health screen­ing to assess sol­diers return­ing from deploy­ments, he said. 

Build­ing on the their department’s sui­cide hot­line, VA offi­cials last year start­ed an Inter­net-based chat line for ser­vice­mem­bers to dis­cuss stress, said Dr. Robert L. Jesse, a physi­cian and VHA’s act­ing prin­ci­pal deputy under­sec­re­tary of health. “Younger folks are much more used to [chat­ting on the Inter­net and tex­ting on phones] than hav­ing a phone con­ver­sa­tion,” he said. 

Using con­sumer-based tech­nol­o­gy is increas­ing­ly impor­tant to reach ser­vice­mem­bers, not only because it’s a medi­um they are com­fort­able with, but also because those not on active duty – Nation­al Guard and reserve mem­bers, and vet­er­ans who have sep­a­rat­ed from ser­vice – are wide­ly dis­persed and some­times hard to reach, Chiarel­li said, not­ing an increase in sui­cides among Guard mem­bers not on active duty. 

The increas­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy also can help in get­ting around prob­lems from the nation­al short­age in men­tal health care work­ers. For exam­ple, Chiarel­li said, it would be ben­e­fi­cial for a sol­dier at Fort Camp­bell, Ky., to be “seen” by a psy­chi­a­trist via Inter­net tech­nol­o­gy, rather than be dri­ven 100 miles to Nashville to meet in person. 

Besides the dig­i­tal­ly based pro­grams, the mil­i­tary offi­cers out­lined numer­ous ways their ser­vices are reach­ing out to troops and their fam­i­lies on issues such as trau­mat­ic brain injuries, post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der and sui­cide pre­ven­tion. All of the ser­vices have increased aware­ness train­ing, start­ing with new recruits, focus­ing heav­i­ly on non­com­mis­sioned offi­cers, and extend­ing to flag offi­cers. All said they are doing pre- and post-deploy­ment screen­ing, and reach­ing out to families. 

The Army, in a pro­gram with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, has trained more than 1,200 sol­diers to be resilience train­ers to oth­ers, with plans to place them in every bat­tal­ion, Chiarel­li said. 

The Navy has a pro­gram called ACT – ask, care, treat­ment, or “ask about your ship­mate, care for your ship­mate, and help him or her get treat­ment,” said Adm. Jonathan W. Green­ert, vice chief of naval oper­a­tions. The ser­vice began 10 train­ing work­shops at 20 loca­tions this year, and plans to open five more by fall. And, he said, more than 100 sailors have been trained to teach oth­ers about con­trol­ling stress. 

“Stress is a fact of life, and we want to reframe the issue to one of stress con­trol,” Green­ert said. The pro­grams are designed “to build resilience to stress as part of a healthy lifestyle.” 

The Air Force has increased train­ing and coun­sel­ing, and held a “Wing­man Day” in May to under­score that every air­man, regard­less of rank, needs to watch out for changes in oth­ers and reach out to them if they sus­pect they’re not well, Gen. Car­rol H. Chan­dler, Air Force vice chief of staff, said. 

The Marine Corps, which has the most sui­cides per capi­ta with 52 last year, recent­ly cre­at­ed a hot­line with the Tri­care West mil­i­tary health plan, in which Marines and their fam­i­lies can call anony­mous­ly 24/7 to dis­cuss stress, said Gen. James F. Amos, assis­tant com­man­dant of the Marine Corps. 

Also, Amos said, the Marines focus on both phys­i­cal and men­tal resilience begin­ning at boot camp, and con­duct pre-deploy­ment immer­sion train­ing to get young Marines accus­tomed to a com­bat environment. 

“The best thing we can do for them is not only to get them phys­i­cal­ly fit, but we want our Marines to expe­ri­ence back home most of the fear, anx­i­ety, con­fu­sion and fog of war before they deploy,” Amos said. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →