The AP (6/14, Cassata) reports, “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday he has ordered all branches of the military to conduct an extensive review of mental health diagnoses amid criticism of how the services treat the men and women suffering the invisible wounds of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under questioning from a Senate panel on Wednesday, Panetta disclosed that he had asked the Air Force and Navy, which includes the Marine Corps, to follow the lead of the Army in launching an independent study of how it evaluates soldiers with possible post-traumatic stress disorder.” The Army review, according to the AP, will “serve as a model for the other services.”

McClatchy (6/14, Mohamed) notes that while testifying before a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Panetta “suggested he meet with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to discuss improvements” in the military’s disability system. The chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, US Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) replied, “I totally appreciate your saying that to me today, but sitting down and talking with Secretary Shinseki is something we’ve been hearing for a long time. We need some recommendations and we need to move forward and we need it to be a top priority out of the Pentagon as we transition now out of Afghanistan.”

The Military Times (6/14, Kime) reports, “The Defense Department plans to review all military mental health cases dating to 2001 to ensure troops were not denied appropriate diagnoses or service-related benefits…said” Panetta at Wednesday’s hearing. The “review is necessary to ‘try to build a better system between the Pentagon, the Department of Defense and [Veterans Affairs],’ according to Panetta. ‘I am not satisfied… there are still huge gaps in terms of the differences of how [DoD and VA] approach these cases and how they diagnose the cases and how they deal with them, and frankly, that’s a whole area we have to do much better on,’ Panetta said.”

The Hill (6/14, Herb) “Defcon Hill” blog notes that Murray “told Panetta Wednesday that ‘the Pentagon and the VA are losing the battle on mental and behavioral health conditions.'”

On its website, MSNBC (6/14, Sala) points out, however, that Murray has praised the Army for “opening an investigation into accusations” that some post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnoses made by the Army “were unfairly overturned”

Analysis: Suicide Is Second Leading Cause Of Death In Military. USA Today (6/14, Zoroya) reports, “The most common way that US servicemembers die outside of combat is by their own hand, according to an analysis released by the Pentagon on Wednesday. Since 2010, suicide has outpaced traffic accidents, heart disease, cancer, homicide and all other forms of death in the military besides combat…says” the report, which points out that one in “four non-combat deaths last year were servicemembers killing themselves.” USA Today adds, “On a related issue, Panetta revealed Wednesday that he will have all service branches follow the Army’s lead in reviewing mental health cases dating to 2001,” in order “to see whether any current or former servicemember was denied appropriate medical retirement benefits.”

VA Examining Why Black Women Have Lowest Suicide Rate In US Population. The National Journal Daily (6/13, Czekalinski, Subscription Publication) noted, “Mental-health experts, the US military, the groups that aid returning service members, their families are trying to provide a sense of support for veterans and active-duty troops in an attempt to prevent the growing number of suicides.” Members of the US military “have been taking their own lives in alarmingly increasing numbers over this past decade at war in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Veterans Affairs “is looking to black women, the group in the US population with the lowest suicide rate, to learn the factors behind that statistic and, hopefully, then determine how best to use that knowledge to help service members.”

Related Links:

— “Pentagon chief orders review of mental diagnoses,”Donna Cassata, Associated Press, June 14, 2012.

The Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram (6/12, Vaughn) reports, “The Department of Veterans Affairs, sharply criticized in recent weeks for delays in getting help for veterans with mental-health problems, promised an aggressive timetable Monday to hire hundreds of psychologists, counselors and social workers this year.” The department “said it has put together a team of experts and established a recruiting and retention program to meet VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s goal of hiring 1,600 more mental-health clinicians.” Mary Schohn, a “clinical psychologist and director of Mental Health Operations for the VA, said she hopes that as more personnel are added ‘follow-up times will be sooner, veterans will be satisfied with the care they’re receiving and there will be more consistent staffing across the country.'”

Related Links:

— “VA to hire more mental-health personnel,”Christ Vaughn, Star-Telegram, June 11, 2012.

In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times (6/12), Neal Halfon, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics, health services and public policy at the University of California-Los Angeles, writes, “Researchers at the National Institutes of Mental Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have documented that less than 50% of children and youths with mental and behavioral problems receive appropriate care, especially in underprivileged communities.” He points out, “The best way parents and friends can respond to signs of mental health problems is by recognizing warning signs and intervening early.” He goes on to list a number of signs that may indicate possible mental-health issues in youngsters and teens.

They are:

“The best way parents and friends can respond to signs of mental health problems is by recognizing warning signs and intervening early. Every child has bumps along the road to adulthood, but some things to watch for include:

• Problems “getting along” across a variety of settings, such as at school, at home or with peers.
• Changes in appetite, sleep or concentration.
• Social withdrawal, or fearful behavior toward things your child normally is not afraid of.
• Returning to behaviors more common in younger children, such as bed-wetting.
• Signs of being upset, such as sadness or tearfulness.
• Signs of self-destructive or risky behavior, such as head-banging, cutting or a tendency to get hurt often.
• Excessive or unusually early experimentation with alcohol or drugs.
• Repeated thoughts of or conversations about death.”

Related Links:

— “Mental illness and lessons from Kelly Thomas’ last cry for help,”Neal Halfon, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2012.

The Boston Globe (6/11, Brown) reports on “late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” Researchers “are finding that the passage of time does not always diminish traumatic symptoms, and in fact, the physical, mental, and social changes that come with age can aggravate them.” The article focuses on Holocaust survivors. “Many Holocaust experts say the problem is surfacing now, in part, because few survivors got psychiatric help early on.”

Related Links:

— “Recognizing delayed PTSD in Holocaust survivors,The Boston Globe, June 11, 2012.

he AP (6/11, Tanner) reports that even young children may engage in self-harm, also known as nonsuicidal self-injury, according to a study published online June 11 in the journal Pediatrics.

For the study, researchers asked 655 children “whether they’d engaged in any self-harming activities and, if they had, what kind and how often,” the Washington Post (6/11, Huget) “The Checkup” blog reports.

The study revealed that nearly 8% of children in third grade, 4% of children in sixth grade, and 13 percent of teens in ninth grade had engaged in some sort of self-injurious behavior, such as hitting, cutting, or burning themselves, Reuters (6/11, Pittman) reports. Among younger children, the biggest self-injurious behavior was hitting. Teens, however, were more likely to cut themselves. The study authors explained that children who self-harm are often depressed, anxious or angry and engage in the behavior as a way of dealing with these strong emotions.

Related Links:

— “Self-injury starts early with Denver kids, study indicates,”Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press, June 11, 2012.

The Mobile (AL) Press-Register (6/8, Andrews) reports, “A new national survey reveals the number of 50- to 59-year-olds reporting abuse of illicit drugs, including the non-medical use of prescription drugs, more than doubled from 2002 to 2010, going from 907,000 to 2,375,000, or from 2.7 to 5.8 percent, according to a new study from the National Institutes of Health. Among those 65 and older, 414,000 used illicit drugs in 2010, health data showed.” Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said, “Abusing these substances can worsen age-related health conditions, cause injuries and lead to addiction.”

NBC Nightly News (6/7, story 6, 2:15, Williams) reported, “Every few years the Centers for Disease Control surveys this nation’s high school students about some of the risks they take on a regular basis, the kind of things parents suspect and fear the most.” On Thursday, the CDC released the results from its 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The CDC’s Howell Wechsler CDC said, “It’s frustrating that while we’re making great progress in increasing seat belt use and reducing the number of kids who are driving while drinking, other safety issues pop up in their place, related to new technology.”

According to the Los Angeles Times (6/8, Healy) “Booster Shots” blog, the report indicates that “only 8% of American high-schoolers own up to never wearing a seat belt — down from 26% in 1991. In the 30 days preceding their response to government survey-takers, 24% had gotten into the car with a driver who’d been drinking, and that’s down from 40% who had done so when asked in 1991.”

However, the AP (6/8, Subscription Publication) reports, “In the survey, about 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving during the previous month. About 43 percent of high school juniors said they had done so.”

Related Links:

— “New study: Prescription and illicit drug abuse rises among 50- to 59-year-olds,”Casandra Andrews, Al.com, June 7, 2012.

HealthDay (6/8, Preidt) reports, “Teens with major depression who receive and respond to treatment are less likely to abuse drugs in the following years,” according to a study published in the April-May issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. “The study included 192 participants, aged 12 to 18, at 11 sites across the United States who were treated for major depression and then followed for five years.” Researchers found that “during the follow-up, 10 percent of [teens] whose depression receded after 12 weeks of treatment later abused drugs, compared with 25 percent of those who did not respond to depression treatment.”

Teens With Mental Health Disorders More Likely To Become Addicted To Opioid Painkillers. MedWire (6/8, Mahendra) reports, “Adolescents with mental health disorders are significantly more likely to become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers than those without mental disorders,” according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. “A longitudinal analysis of 59,077 adolescents and young adults aged 13-24 years” also “showed that those with mental health disorders were significantly more likely to be prescribed opioids for chronic back pain, neck pain, headache, or arthritis/joint pain than those without mental health disorders.”

Related Links:

— “Depressed Teens Who Respond to Treatment Less Likely to Abuse Drugs,”Robert Preidt , HealthDay, June 7, 2012.

The CBS Evening News (6/7, lead story, 2:20, Pelley) led off its Thursday broadcast by reporting that the “war in Iraq is over, and the war in Afghanistan is winding down, but the pace of military suicides is actually increasing to a record level. Pentagon figures show that as of this past Monday, 154 service members had taken their lives so far in 2012, an average of more than one a day, and much higher than the 138 killed so far this year in Afghanistan.” Pentagon “officials say one possible reason for this unexpected spike in suicides is the poor economy, which has also caused an increase in civilian suicides.”

The AP (6/8, Burns) reports, “Suicides are surging among America’s troops, averaging nearly one a day this year — the fastest pace in the nation’s decade of war.” The “numbers are rising among the 1.4 million active-duty military personnel despite years of effort to encourage troops to seek help with mental health problems.” The “renewed surge in suicides has caught the attention of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,” who in an internal memo sent last month to the “Pentagon’s top civilian and military leaders” said, “We must continue to fight to eliminate the stigma from those with post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues.”

Related Links:

— “AP IMPACT: Suicides are surging among US troops,”Robert Burns, Associated Press, June 8, 2012.

The Wall Street Journal (6/7, A25, Subscription Publication) reports on the Jed Foundation founded by the parents of Jed Satow who committed suicide in 1998 while a sophomore at the University of Arizona. The foundation offers programs to help colleges and universities improve their counseling services.

Related Links:

— “Campus Suicide Prevention,The Wall Street Journal, June 06, 2012.

Medscape (6/7, Brauser) reports, “Patients with psychosis, dementia, or substance misuse may be at an increased mortality risk during hot weather,” according to a 22,562-patientstudy published in the June issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. The study “of adult patients in England showed that for those with severe mental illness, the risk for death increased by almost 5% per 1° C increase in temperature above 18° C.” Notably, “the greatest mortality risk found in this study was for those who were younger than 65 years, those specifically diagnosed with drug or alcohol misuse, and those taking antipsychotics.”