I missed Larry Wein’s op-ed in the New York Times on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), so thanks to Güzin Bayraksan for pointing it out in her blog. Entitled “Counting the Walking Wounded”, the piece argues that the number of soldiers expected to get PTSD is quite a bit higher than previous estimates (which were in the range of 15%):
We found that about 35 percent of soldiers and marines who deploy to Iraq will ultimately suffer from P.T.S.D. — about 300,000 people, with 20,000 new sufferers for each year the war last.
If you check out the blog for my son Alexander, you will see that we are in the midst of our own “traumatic stress”: nothing like a soldier in Iraq, of course, but between the passing of my mother and the destruction of our kitchen by a broken pipe, not to mention starting up teaching again and a few other things in my life, I feel mini-PTSD coming on! Fortunately, playing catch with Alexander is pretty good therapy.
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