Why is there a problem of homelessness among veterans? Indeed there is a shortage of affordable housing in Los Angeles, but that is not the real issue here. Rather, we are confronted with a problem of the brain. Homeless veterans are not able to sustain relationships, and eventually they find themselves out on their own. The downward slide may take years. When the Director of the Salvation Army Bell Shelter (the largest shelter for formerly homeless veterans West of the Mississippi) was asked recently about whether he was seeing a lot of veterans of the recent wars, his answer was, “not yet.” By and large, they have not yet worn out their familial and other connections. But among those still suffering from PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) years after return from combat, a gradual downward slide is the likely prospect.
W hy is it that our nation has not made more progress in dealing with PTSD and TBI over all these years? Admittedly, the whole concept of PTSD only dates back to about 1980, which is rather astounding. But matters are even worse with regard to TBI. We’ve been living with automobile-involved head injuries in huge numbers for nearly a century; there are in addition the common occurrences of minor head injuries among children; and at the other end of the age range we confront all those falls among the elderly leading to minor traumatic brain injury. And yet there has been no real coming to grips with this problem until we confronted the conundrum of blast injury—injury without apparent direct impact on the brain—among our service members. One could well say that the field of medicine essentially ignored what is called ‘minor’ traumatic brain injury until the 21st century.
Something exciting is happening at The Salvation Army Bell Shelter in Los Angeles that I want to share with you this Veterans Day. It started this past May with a small group of veterans who volunteered to be part of a neurofeedback pilot study. The veterans were randomly selected to be either part of the treatment group or the non-treatment, waitlist group. For four weeks during the month of May, the veterans in the treatment group were given five 30-minute neurofeedback sessions. At the end of 20 sessions, five veterans in the treatment group were compared to five veterans in the non-treatment group. I am happy to report the results were astounding.
After serving in Iraq, wounded Marine Lance Corporal Chris Allen couldn’t shake images of losing his best friend after their Humvee was hit by an RPG; Chris was the sole survivor. He took shrapnel to his knee, thigh, and eye and, after returning home, he turned to alcohol to help numb the emotional and physical pain. Chris was experiencing the classic signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A fellow veteran and former Homecoming for Veteran participant at Neurofeedback Train Your Brain (NTYB) convinced Chris to do neurofeedback.
Homecoming for Veterans, EEG Institute, and the Salvation Army Bell Shelter have instituted a pilot program to provide neurofeedback therapy to veterans living at the shelter.
Soldiers and veterans looking to alleviate the devastating symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder might soon have a new way to help themselves. Strangely, it involves using their gray matter to control a video game.
Continue reading Wired article by Katie Drummond at wired.com
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Soldiers and veterans looking to alleviate the devastating symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder might soon have a new way to help themselves. Strangely, it involves using their gray matter to control a video game.
The Problem of Homelessness Among Veterans
Wednesday, February 18th, 2015by Siegfried Othmer, PhD
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Posted in Application of Neurofeedback, Commentary, Neurofeedback, PTSD, Veterans | No Comments »