GREENVILLE, N.C. - It goes by many names: "War Malaise." "Combat Fatigue" "Shell Shock". Since Vietnam though its been called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There are 1.6 million veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan war alone. And one-in-four has some symptom of P-T-S-D. And as time passes, if Vietnam is any blueprint, that number will climb dramatically over the years. No one really knows the best way to treat it. However, there is a new approach. Its a lab that uses cutting edge science that could not have happened without today’s technology.
You’ve heard it before. When veterans tell their stories of war, it is often done with an emotionless flat ton. But when the echo of war is gone what happens then? If left alone, Post Traumatic Stress will come out, most often in a destructive way:
Staff Sergeant Armand Mayville, Jr.: "Oh yeah, I was getting angry over everything. Like you know if the kids didn't put their dishes in the sink. Just stupid stuff." Corporal Will Thorpe: 'before it was just uuuugh, i was just jacked-up all the time." Lance Corporal Daniel Printz lll: “I was physically there, but emotionally and mentally, I was completely separate from my family."
They may drink too much, fight too often and then withdraw from everyone - they force their memories into a mental box and Doctor Carmen Russoniello says "what we try to do here in the lab is open it. And force flash backs." Russoniello should know. As a marine grunt in Vietnam, he brought home his own demons. "The idea is to desensitize.” he says. “The memories will never go away obviously, but at least you can control your physiological responses to it. And it’s out! You've confronted it, which is very important. The key to PTSD is, they have to touch that emotion to that event." He coupled his ideas with today’s technology. They don't deal with "behavior" at the "TOP" lab at E.C.U. They use technology to deal with ways to balance the body and mind, to let the “psyche” get better on its own.
First, Breathing! Taking in oxygen balances body chemicals and gives you time to deal with stress without getting angry. Russoniello says its better to utilize the systems that are in place to try and basically internally exercise the autonomic nervous system. So that's really what's happening. He says these guys are actually flexing it, by forcing respiration and it brings back the tone in that system. So its similar to a muscle.
Second, control the mind. Marine Corporal Daniel Printz lll deals with PTSD- traumatic brain injury, permanent leg injuries and depression; "I didn't care if I took another breath” I asked if he every contemplated suicide after he came home;" Every single day of my life. Because I didn't see myself getting any better. And I didn't want to put my family through what I knew I was going to do. But now I can fix it." And this game helps him fix it. You play by using the electric impulses from the brain. If you don't focus- you can't play. "when I first started I would be super vigilant every single noise in the hall way, every tap on the floor, that would distract me"
Finally all of that is coupled with the "shock" training of virtual reality. When you put on the IR goggles here's the secret of how it works. You may be seeing smoke down a road, it looks as if you’re sitting on top of a Humvee. The good thing is you’re perfectly safe and you can think about the things around you. That’s the secret to try to get them to think about what they are seeing and process it a little more easily.
Operators can add more mayhem depending on the patient. Will for instance, was a gunner in a Humvee and I told Will Thorpe that I had noticed he started breathing more quickly when an IED went off in his virtual world, "Yeah, i was blown up in 2006 so IED’s do definitely have a little impact on me.” He said, “I still scan the roads a little bit when I drive and I’m still a little bit of “high anxiety”."
It also helps with the "Macho Syndrome", the "I can fix it myself" attitude.
Armand Mayville says, "You know, there's nothing wrong with me. I can fix myself. I tried, but it couldn’t.”
"I know I was going to need help with it”, says Will Thorpe. ”It took me a while to really come to terms with it."
Dr. Russoniello "I think people can learn to move on with their lives. And what we see in here and what I try to tell guys is, that they have an obligation now to live their life. That's what those other guys died for."
Thorpe also saysa "One of the most important things I've learned is, you can't get tied up with little things. You got to learn to let it go, take a breath". And Armand Mayville says "The country wasn't expecting all of this, about how we were going to come back and it just doesn't seem like the assets for the care was readily available." But Daniel Printz says the T.O.P. program did much more than just make him feel better. He told me, “Bio-feedback saved my marriage and basically saved my life."
The fact is, all of the men we talked with said the program has helped them. Camp Lejeune hasgotten the message too; they are building a "fog of war" facility where they will use all three techniques - especially virtual reality - to prepare the bodies and minds of marines for the stress of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hope is, that will cut down on the effects of PTSD. Will it work? Well, it’s so new there is no science to support it one way or the other.
But the experts tell me, “like chicken soup......it probably couldn't hurt.”
Here are some sites that will help you learn more about the T.O.P. program and PTSD:
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