...Why I choose this population? Several health care providers may may encounter veterans in need of suicide risk assessment and prevention, but the registered nurse occupies an essential link in this vital role within the veteran affairs hospital .In 2013, a projected 8.9 million (40 percent) veterans out of 21.9 million were predicted to be enrolled at the VA, which suggests many veterans seek health care services inside the VA and will come in contact with the registered nurse during provision of health care services. Evidence indicates patients who commit suicide may visit their primary care physician more than twice as often as they visit a psychiatrist and are more likely to have visited a primary care physician than a mental health clinician...
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...within the department of veteran’s affairs. Here the veteran can grasp onto emotions with emotional regulations, while using distress tolerance strategies (Vujanovic et al., 2011). There are drawbacks for mindfulness treatments, being that some veterans traumas are newly developed and therefore veterans do not initially have the ability to yet handle the distress of the events. In these types of cases, alternative therapies should be explored. It may depend on the veteran’s current state of functionality to determine if mindfulness treatments are to be beneficial. Within the scope of therapies, a question in research was developed. How do OEF and OIF veterans access their treatment? Do veterans...
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...Administration Scandal and Business Ethics Case Study August 19, 2014 Abstract This paper will discuss how the Veteran’s Administration first started and how it has evolved over the years to become the entity it is today, serving our nations veterans. I will also discuss how the Veteran’s Administration has been plagued with many scandals throughout its existence, from when it was known as the Veterans Bureau during the early 1920’s and also the many issues that the Veterans Administration has dealt with over the years to include those that were involved and their official capacity in wrong doings. This paper will look at how the Veterans administration has tried to make changes to support the increased number of Veterans after many of our past wars and some of the difficulties veterans from the Vietnam War have faced to receive care and benefits that were exposed to Agent Orange. I will also looked at the many problems veterans have faced over the years to include most recent allegation that the VA has gone through since the earlier part of this year and the changes that has taken place to correct the problem. According to an article written by CNN, during the end of the Revolutionary War Congress was supposed to pay those veterans that were disabled during the war, but the service members individual states were left up to the task, leaving only a few thousand to receive any type of payment pay. Congress establishes the Veterans Bureau which was to help administer...
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...Forecasting the Future Female Veteran Population and Their Increased Use of the VA Medical System - VPT2 Data-Driven Decision Making - C207 August 12th, 2015 Forecasting the Future Female Veteran Population and Their Increased Use of the VA Medical System The use of the Veterans Affairs medical care system has significantly increased over the last decade due to two recent wars and an aging Vietnam Veteran population. As females have been accepted in all roles into the military, their population within the military has progressively multiplied over the last three decades. Since females in general typically use healthcare at a higher rate than their male counterparts, it is necessary to ascertain if the female veteran population and their usage of the VA is trending in the direction of growth. Should the numbers be trending in a manner that shows significant growth, a further in-depth study would be indicated to determine future growth beyond the course of this analysis could provide. This trending information as well as future studies, should they be indicated, would assist VA management in determining future monetary and staffing budgets. Data Collection To evaluate the potential for growth within the female veteran population, data was collected online from: Veterans Affairs (VA) detailing veteran population statistics by state, age group, and gender; a Women’s Health Veteran’s Affairs Publication detailing the socio-demographic, utilization, and Costs...
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...Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Necessary Improvements the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and United States Department of Defense Must Make Abstract Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental anxiety disorder, affects 13% to 20% of armed force members returning from Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) (Hoge, et. al, 2004), in addition to a large population of Vietnam Veterans. Within the past 32 years, awareness of this disorder has escalated and the realism of the severity of this disorder has been noticed. Efforts to screen and treat PTSD in military veterans have been established by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Screening is conducted once military personnel return from deployment and treatments including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Exposure Therapy, and medications are used to relieve the symptoms of PTSD. These screening and treatment methods are evaluated and s suggestion for improvement is made. Necessary Improvements the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and the United States Department of Defense Must Make With Regards to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In current political debate, the United States is arguing where budget cuts should be made and how the U.S. should go about spending money. The U.S. military is consistently brought up in these considerations. In such considerations, topics such as downsizing the military and the...
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...The Issues Arising From the Department of Veteran Affairs Victor N. Ijoma Texas Southern University Abstract The issue of veteran’s affairs is a very important aspect to who we are as a nation. There are thousands of men and women who put on uniforms to go and defend our rights thousands of miles away, they have fought to make our dreams of living free and equal a reality and I believe we owe them the least of caring for them when they return home. The situation currently going on in the Department of Veterans Affairs is a nightmare, veterans being denied care, not being able to receive adequate support when they come home is a national disgrace to us. The effect of not being able to attend to the need of our veterans is a very dangerous trend, and unless we take the matter as an emergency situation, the very strength of our armed forces will start to lose its glory. The most important means of making sure we are taking care of our veterans is by looking into the laws and policy that currently govern the department so as to find a more responsible approach to making these laws and policy’s even better. The veterans Affairs being the second largest department in the federal government, it is crucial to have a budget big enough to be able to sustain old working programs and implement new programs in order to help give our veterans the very best care they have earned and desire. Department of Veterans Affairs As early as 1636 when the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were...
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...Military Veterans From research studies, military veterans aren’t well compensated for their service in the military. Not only are they not well compensated, there were many combat soldiers coming home with anger issues, PTSD, depression, and other psychological problems. According to research, half of the homeless individuals are military veterans not just an opinion but it’s a proven fact. Veterans are often not honored, as they should be. Why aren’t they? Another question is why aren’t our veterans not well taken care of? No health insurance for veterans First, scientific studies show that working age veterans don’t have health insurance. According to Genevieve Kenney, a senior fellow with the Urban Institute and co-author of the report...
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...Veterans Affairs Data Theft (http://epic.org/privacy/vatheft/) ▪ Department of Veterans Affairs Reports Massive Data Theft. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced today that an agency employee took home records on 26.5 million veterans that were subsequently stolen by a burglar. The data included names, Social Security Numbers (SSNs), and date of birth, as well as some disability ratings. The FBI and the VA Inspector General's Office have launched "full-scale investigations." Information for those who are concerned about identity theft is available from the Federal Trade Commission. (May 22) ▪ Scope of Veterans Affairs Data Theft Widens. The personal information of about 1.1 million active-duty military personnel, 430,000 members of the National Guard, and 645,000 members of the Reserves was stolen in the recent theft of computer data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency announced Tuesday. The agency previously said (pdf) that all 26.5 million people affected by the data theft were veterans and their spouses. The data include SSNs and disability ratings. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse offers ID theft prevention tips. (Jun. 7) ▪ Stolen Veterans Affairs Laptop and Hard Drive Are Found. The stolen laptop computer and hard drive containing sensitive data for up to 26.5 million veterans, their spouses, and active-duty military personnel have been found, according to Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson. This comes as newly discovered...
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...backfires and I instinctively swerve to the right to avoid it while jumping 2 feet in my seat. This is my reality and is also the reality of so many of my brothers in arms. We served our great nation in Operation Iraqi Freedom; some of us came home, while others didn’t. For those of us who returned, our inner being had been destroyed by the sights and experiences that we were exposed to during our deployments. We are victims, suffering from wounds that can’t be seen, but by internal wounds that we struggle with on a daily basis. We will never be the same. Many veterans return from war and are unable to adapt to the life they once knew. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most widely recognized lasting effects of war in service members. PTSD is a mental health condition that’s triggered by a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened (Department of Veterans Affairs). Every day while patrolling roads in Iraq we had to be aware of our surroundings and not become complacent. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were one of the most common threats we were exposed to. These bombs were hidden in the ground like landmines, unable to be seen with a naked eye, and could only be detected by using metal detectors, the eye in the sky, or being ran over. On several occasions my men and I were directly hit by an IED causing shrapnel to penetrate through our vehicle, causing wheels to be blown off the vehicle, causing a loss of armor...
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...Abstract Throughout history, people have recognized that exposure to combat situations can negatively impact the mental health of those involved in these situations. In fact, the diagnosis of PTSD historically originates from observations of the effect of combat on soldiers. Since the 1800’s grouping of symptoms that we now refer to as PTSD has been described in the past as "combat fatigue," "shell shock," or "war neurosis." Combat veterans often return from deployment having experienced a wide range of exposures, symptoms and medical conditions. The Department of Veterans Affairs established war related illness and injury study centers to serve combat veterans with unexplained illnesses. History Although many coexisting disorders have been reported with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), little reference has been made to the presence of psychotic symptoms. Post-traumatic stress disorder is commonly described among victims of severe trauma outside of normal human experience, in this case the combat veterans returning from deployment. Traumatic events can lead to reevaluation of life and its meaning; a reconsideration of what is truly important which often changes one’s set of priorities. Trauma often causes abrupt cessation of continuity in coherence in sense of one’s self (Barlow, 2002). In the early 1800’s military doctors began diagnosing soldiers with "exhaustion" following the stress of battle. This "exhaustion" was characterized by mental shutdown...
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...Ending Homelessness among Veterans through Housing Programs Services Mary R. Flores Southeastern University Introduction Homeless veterans have consistently existed in the United States. However, just after the Afghanistan and Iraq war, the issue has become more noticeable in the news. The National Health Care for Homeless Council defines homelessness as the absence of a normal and adequate night-time place of residence. According to the ‘National Alliance to End Homelessness’ program, 49,933 of veterans and their families are currently living without having their basic needs met (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2015). To know whether veterans participating in the Housing First program with the Housing and Urban Department-Veterans Affairs Supported Housing (HUD-VASH) receive housing services more rapidly and keep up long term housing stability, it must be compared to the Veterans in Treatment As Usual (TAU) approach to HUD-VASH. Connection to housing service programs is critical to veteran’s successful re-integration to society after deployment. This is exemplified by the success of Housing First (HF) and the different outcome of veterans who use similar program such as Treatment As Usual (TAU). The HUD-VASH program first started in 1992 as a teamwork effort between the Veterans Affair (VA) and the HUD. HUD provides housing to homeless veterans through a resident-based program named ‘Section 8 vouchers’, while the VA provides supportive services. ‘Section...
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...United States Veterans Martha Clark Adventist University of Health Sciences Abstract The purpose of this paper is to critique the article “Homelessness among a national representative sample of US veterans: prevalence, service utilization, and correlates,” which is a case study on the topic of homeless veterans in the United States. This article finds that low income, younger age, and poor mental and physical health had significant impact on whether a veteran would spend time homeless. The conclusions found in this article will be examined and compared with other related articles and data. This article shows that there is a correlation between veterans of foreign wars and periods of homelessness....
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...need when returning home from war. While the majority of the 22 million living veterans in the US have a positive view about their military service, only one in five of them feels that the government treats them well (Villatte et al. 2). Data indicates that only 38 percent of the veterans felt that the government had supported them adequately. The US supports war veterans through offering them job training, counseling, healthcare, finding apartments, and integrating into civilian life. Many of those who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan deployment in the past decade required prolonged hospitalization and treatment for mental and physical health conditions (Villatte...
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...Student Veterans: Free Tuition Comes With Many Costs When a service member is discharged from the military, it is appropriately termed “separation” because it comes with the grief and uncertainty that being torn from one’s family brings. The past several years were structured for service members, and they were inseparably tied to some sort of social system, whether it was with a battalion, a platoon, or a four-man team. Solitude was rare. Most service members go to college after separation where earning a degree can be an elusive goal, as these men and women become student veterans. Coupled by conflicting feelings of detachment and determination, a student veteran is a unique type of college student that faces many more challenges that they cannot prepare for. In order to understand the term “student veteran,” it is essential to break the two words apart. For the purpose of this essay, “student” will be referred to as Oxford English Dictionary’s standard definition of “a person who is undergoing a course of study and instruction at a university or other place of higher education or technical training” (2013). In reference to the U.S. Code: Title 38 – Veterans’ Benefits (2012), a veteran is “a person who has served in the active [United States] military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable” (2012). To qualify as a student veteran, one must have met both of the above criteria and be enrolled in an institution...
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...homeless veterans who have served in the military for our country. Each day I face many difficulties, but no difficulty could ever measure up to the difficulties the homeless veterans in my program face. Each day I look over charts of veterans who have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and many of the co-diagnosed with extensive Substance Abuse issues as well and I ask myself “was this abuse to ease the pain? The veterans I serve has spent years in a military only to come home to a world who looks down on them because they are no longer normal and find it very hard to adjust to the civilian world due to the imagines stained on their brain from the world. In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about one in ten returning soldiers seen in VA have a problem with alcohol or other drugs (Veteran Affairs 2012). As human service provider I witness this co diagnosis of PTSD ( Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and SUD (Substance Abuse Disorder) daily and it has encouraged me to form a opinion. After some deep thought I would like to look into the efficiency of the treatment prescribed to solders suffering from PTSD and which is more effective. In this paper I will be looking Cognitive behavioral therapy offered when trying to treat PTSD and SUD . On the other hand I will like to look into a variety of medication therapy which includes anxiety medication and drugs known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. On an weekly basis I deal with over 100 veterans who...
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