Virtual reality: Dutch firm wins prize for gaming pain away

DutchNews, December 19, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

 A Frisian company which has developed a virtual reality headset to combat chronic pain has won the prestigious UN World SummitAward. 

Exactly how many people are suffering from chronic pain in the Netherlands is not known but their number runs into the thousands, medical experts say. Often the pain has no clear cause. The conventional treatment is painkillers but these are costly and don’t always work. 

The VR treatment tackles the pain by training the brain, psychologist Louis Zantema, who founded Reducept, told broadcaster NOS. 

‘People with chronic pain are oversensitive to the pain signal sent by the body to the brain. The therapy helps the nervous system because the brain believes healing is taking place,’ he said. 

Shooting down the pain 

‘When you put on the VR headset you travel into in your own nervous system. The painful spots show up as small red dots which you shoot at, as if you were playing a game,’ Zantema explained. 

After ‘shooting down’ the pain the next step is a mindfulness exercise focusing on the spinal cord. ‘There we are using a psychological trick which also works for people suffering from trauma. The patient does a complicated exercise which is alternated with an intensive focusing on the pain.’ 

Professor Harry van Goor tested the VR headset on 40 people all of whom experienced a reduction in pain symptoms. He says the treatment offers hope to many while saving money at the same time. 

‘Chronic pain is causing depression and is putting a lot of pressure on the health system. The medication either doesn’t help or is addictive and waiting lists for the specialist pain clinics are very long,’ he told NOS. 

The treatment is available at over 50 healthcare institutions but is not covered by health insurers. A session costs €15 apart from the cost of buying a VR headset.

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Science & Spiritually Conference 2018, BC – Canada (4), June 16-17, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version “Predictions”)

“….Let me close with this: I'm going to give you the same concept that I gave those few on their way to the beautiful garden a few days ago [channelling on the way to Butchart Gardens in Vancouver Island]. There are things in your field for you that will save your life unless you look back and say, "Impossible!" Some of you have an old habit where you look at your life and say, "Well, for others, but not for me." Sometimes you pull on your old logic and further say, "Well, it's never happened before, so why should it happen now?" Dear ones, that exactly reflects the earlier teaching of the day. Don't let the past predict your future. If you do, then you are actually creating your own demise.

What is in the field for you? What is it you can see and imagine? Have you heard this question from the scientists this week - not a channeller, but the scientists? Did you hear that the visualization of your health from your consciousness goes inside and is seen by your own cellular structure? Does this science sound like Kryon? Did you hear that the field is there to push it forward? Do you believe in homeopathy? Do you see how it works? For example, you have a tincture that is too small to be recognized by any part of the body as a chemical change, yet the body sees the signal from the tincture and corrects the issue! Dear one, homeopathy is not something unknown on the planet. It's everywhere! So understand this: The principles of homeopathy are NOT homeopathic principles. They are Universal principles of the field.

So, how about consciousness homeopathy? What's the difference between putting a tincture together to create a signal for healing and life extension or putting strong consciousness together that does the same? This is here and already has been proven. It's just means changing the mechanics a little. With the new energy that I have told you is here, and the amount of love that is pouring to you that is greater than ever before because of what you're doing, old soul, this is doable for you. More than doable. It awaits manifestation. ..…”

Dogs trained to offer support to troubled US veterans

Yahoo – AFP, Catherine TRIOMPHE, June 16, 2019

US military veteran Michael Kidd and his companion dog Millie leave after a training
session at the Paws of War office in Nesconset, New York -- Millie helps Kidd navigate
the difficulties of post-traumatic stress disorder (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Nesconset (United States) (AFP) - Michael Kidd, now 84 years old, fought in the Korean War. His young German shepherd Millie helps calm him down when things start to swirl, usually at night.

Harry Stolberg -- a 42-year-old former Marine who served in Bosnia, Liberia and Nigeria -- has a chocolate Labrador named Rocky who wakes him up from his troubled dreams.

And 31-year-old Phil Davanzo -- who carried the bodies of fallen comrades during a hostage rescue operation that went wrong off Somalia in 2011 -- hopes his Rottweiler puppy will soon be trained to support him during his panic attacks.

The three US veterans, who all live on New York's Long Island, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have sought solace through pet therapy -- namely, a loyal dog to keep them company.

The shelter animals are either trained or being trained to help them through difficult times by Paws of War, an association funded entirely by private donations that then provides the service dogs free of charge.

The group will also train a veteran's dog if he or she already has one.

Veteran Harry Stolberg says his dog Rocky helps him wake up from the nightmares that 

have come after his service overseas in the Marine Corps (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

"The biggest thing is he wakes me up from nightmares," Stolberg says of three-year-old Rocky.

"He can open the door, come in my room, turn on the lights, take my blinders off me... and lick my hands so I wake up."

Rocky, whose 18 months of training were completed six months ago, also helps Stolberg navigate large crowds, which can be triggering.

"If I can't move, he will get me out of that crowd -- he will pick up on that. He will walk around me and look at it and if I don't respond, he will walk away from the crowd with me hooked up to him," he says.

Paws of War -- their acronym is a play on POW, used to signify prisoners of war -- has been active since 2014.

More than 100 dogs have been trained so far, and the therapeutic results for their masters have been significant.

Michael Kidd's dog Millie, seen here, is being trained at Paws of War to help Kidd 

when times are tough -- he says her assistance has led to a reduced need for 

medication (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Off the meds

Kidd, who suffers from severe PTSD, has been able to reduce his intake of medication thanks to Millie.

At night when things are tough, "she will come over to me, she will put her paw on my shoulder, on my chest, and just give me a big slobber," says Kidd, whose father was in Normandy on D-Day.

"That's just saying, 'I am here for you.'"

Stolberg used to need sleeping pills to get through the night, but not anymore, thanks to Rocky.

"Sleeping was my biggest problem. (...) Now I only have a nightmare once or twice a month, instead of every day," he explains.

"A lot of that is also because I know that when I go to sleep, he is in the room -- he is going to wake me up no matter what."

Rebecca Stromski, a senior trainer for Paws of War whose husband served in 

Afghanistan and Kuwait, says it takes 18 to 24 months to teach dogs what to do when 

a troubled veteran sends distress signals (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

'Quite a process'

It takes 18 to 24 months to teach dogs what to do when a troubled veteran sends distress signals, according to Rebecca Stromski, a senior trainer for Paws of War whose husband served in Afghanistan and Kuwait.

"It's quite a process actually, creating a mutual respect and a connection between the service dude and the service dog," she says.

"Once the foundations are in place and the dog starts feeling if things are going well or not for the veterans, they start to do certain motions when the guys are fidgeting," Stromski explains.

"I can start and cue that behavior and use that as an alert."

In the face of seemingly interminable wars for US military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, deployments which began in 2001, veterans are experiencing PTSD symptoms on a regular basis.

Paws of War has more requests for service animals than it can fulfill, with 50 veterans on the waiting list, according to the group's co-founder Dori Scofield.

So far, Paws of War has trained more than 100 dogs to help troubled veterans on Long 

Island, and has more applications than it can currently fulfill (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Both ends of the leash

After running an animal shelter for 30 years, Scofield launched Paws of War after being contacted by veterans returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those soldiers had become attached to dogs they had found in those countries, but were unable to bring them back home.

Through word of mouth recommendations, the association quickly became a top meeting place for the 75,000-strong veteran community on Long Island, one of the biggest in the United States.

"We get applications every day -- we can't keep up," Scofield says. "I can't train enough dogs fast enough."

She has opened satellite offices in Florida and in northern New York state. She has also launched a free mobile veterinary clinic where veterans can bring their companion animals.

Dogs who might have ended up put to sleep in shelters now have homes, and veterans are rediscovering "a reason to get up every day, get moving, get out," Scofield says.

"It has been just so awesome, helping both ends of the leash."

Meditation helps conflict veterans with PTSD: study

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, November 16, 2018

An estimated 14 percent of US veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan
suffer from PTSD (AFP Photo/Javier GALEANO)

Paris (AFP) - Transcendental meditation -- the practice of effortless thinking -- may be as effective at treating PTSD in conflict veterans as traditional therapy, US researchers said Friday, in findings that could help tens of thousands deal with their trauma.

Post traumatic stress disorder, a debilitating condition that can lead to psychosis, bipolar disorder or suicidal and homicidal thoughts, affects an estimated 14 percent of US veterans who serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The most common treatment for PTSD is a process known as prolonged exposure psychotherapy, which forces sufferers to re-experience traumatic events by confronting their memories of the conflict.

Researchers from three US universities decided to look into whether more everyday techniques, which help civilians lower their stress levels and increase focus and productivity, would work on traumatised veterans.

They trialed 203 former servicemen and women with PTSD, most of whom were receiving medication for their symptoms, and randomly assigned them courses of transcendental meditation, prolonged exposure therapy or a specialised PTSD health education class.

They found that 60 percent of veterans who did 20 minutes of quiet meditation every day showed significant improvement in their symptoms, and more completed the study than those given exposure therapy.

"Over the past 50 years, PTSD has expanded to become a significant public health problem," Sanford Nidich, of the Maharishi University of Management Research Institute, told AFP.

"Due to the increasing need to address the PTSD public health care problem in the US, UK and worldwide, there is a compelling need to implement governmental policy to include alternative therapies such as transcendental meditation as an option for treating veterans with PTSD."

Transcendental meditation involves effortlessly thinking of an idea or mantra to produce a settled, calmer state of mind -- scientists call it "restful alertness".

Unlike exposure therapy, meditation can be practised at home, takes up relatively little time, and researchers say it would be significantly cheaper than current treatment techniques.

It also avoids forcing combat veterans to relive their trauma in a bid to get better.

"Transcendental meditation is self-empowering, and can be practised just about anywhere at any time, without the need for specialised equipment or ongoing personnel support," said Nidich, who was the lead author of the study published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal.

'Gave me my life back'

The main problem with existing PTSD treatment, according to Nidich, is that forcing veterans to relive their trauma means many never finish the courses.

Exposure therapy, although officially approved as a treatment by the US Veterans' Association, is ineffective in up to 50 percent of patients and drop-out rates range from 30-45 percent.

"New treatments, including options not involving exposure to the traumatic experience, are needed for veterans who do not respond to treatment or drop-out due to discomfort," said Nidich.

One study participant, a 32-year-old navy veteran whom authors identified only as Ms. K, said learning the meditation technique had "given me my life back."

After being diagnosed as having suffered sexual trauma while on military service, her symptoms worsened until she drank to excess every night and sought to avoid human interaction.

After the transcendental meditation course, "I began to come out of my nightmares and face the battle I had ahead," she said.

She added she had since applied for a job in a hospital.

Researchers said further studies were needed to see if meditation could be a long-term aid for PTSD sufferers.

Abused children carry the trauma in their cells: study

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, October 2, 2018

Researchers found the trauma of child abuse was indelibly printed in the DNA
of victims (AFP Photo/HECTOR RETAMAL)

Paris (AFP) - Children subjected to abuse may carry the physical hallmark of that trauma in their cells, scientists said Tuesday, in research that could help criminal investigations probing historic mistreatment.

The imprints may also shed light on whether or not trauma can be passed on between generations as has long been hypothesised.

A team of researchers at the University of British Columbia examined the sperm cells of 34 adult men, some of whom had been victims of child abuse years earlier.

They found that the effects of the trauma were indelibly printed in 12 regions of the DNA of those men who had experienced varying levels of emotional, physical or sexual abuse.

Scientists believe these alterations, known as methylation, could one day be used by investigators or courts to weigh allegations of child abuse.

"If you think of genes as being like lightbulbs, DNA methylation is like a dimmer switch that controls how strong each light is -- which in turn can influence how cells function," Nicole Gladish, a PhD candidate in the university's Department of Medical Genetics, told AFP.

"This information can potentially provide additional information about how childhood abuse affects long-term physical and mental health."

The experiment is one of a growing number of trials looking into what turns genes "on and off" at different periods of human development, a field of study known as epigenetics.

Once thought as entirely pre-programmed from conception, some genes are now known to be activated or deactivated by environmental factors or an individual's life experience.

'Small piece of the puzzle'

Scientists involved in the study, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, said they still did not know how methylation affects a person's long-term health.

In addition, due to the difficulty in extracting egg cells, the team don't plan to replicate the experiment on women -- statistically far likelier to have been victims of child abuse than men.

Scientists said the degree of "dimming" in the DNA regions were surprising -- one part of the genome of the men who were abused as children was 29 percent different to those who were not.

And, because the degree of methylation changes over time, they were able to tell by looking at the men's cells roughly when the abuse occurred.

"This might help the development of tests that could be used by healthcare workers or potentially even as forensic evidence," Gladish said.

Although researchers still have little idea whether or not the imprints of abuse contained within sperm cells would survive fertilisation intact, lead author Andrea Roberts said the study "brings us at least one step closer" towards working out if trauma can be transmitted across generations.

"We can look at our study as one small piece in the huge overall puzzle of how intergenerational trauma works," said Gladish.

She pointed out there are several other teams working on the conundrum, including experiments on mice and other animals.

"It is certainly possible that epigenetic changes in sperm cells play a role in the physical and mental health of the next generation, but we don't know for sure."

UN summer camps give respite to traumatised young Gazans

Yahoo – AFP, July 23, 2016

Palestinian youth draw during a summer camp at a United Nations Relief and
Works Agency (UNRWA) school on July 23, 2016 in Gaza City (AFP Photo/
Mahmud Hams)

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The UN is offering tens of thousands of children in the Gaza strip, traumatised by three wars with Israel since 2008, a summer break at play camps throughout the territory.

Over three weeks, 165,000 children will attend camps offering play activities and access to psychologists, said Bo Schack of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.

Some 2,000 young Palestinian refugees will run the activities at 120 sites, he said.

The latest round of fighting in Gaza, in 2014, took the lives of 2,251 Palestinians, including more than 500 children. Seventy-three people were killed on the Israeli side, including 67 soldiers.

The violence, which included widespread Israeli air strikes and shelling, "still affects many children in Gaza", Schack said at a ceremony launching the camps.

"We must work harder still to change the lives of these children for the better, to turn their nightmares into hopes and dreams of a better future," he said.

In 2014, Sara, now 14, took shelter with her mother and brothers in a UN school while fighting raged around and above them.

"I don't like to think about that time, I'd rather go and have fun," she said.

Palestinian girls at a summer camp organised at a UNRWA school on July 23, 

2016 in Gaza City (AFP Photo/Mahmud Hams)

Dressed in a traditional embroidered black dress, she was enthusiastic about the camp.

"We really need to play, to have fun, and summer camps provide us with a good atmosphere," she told AFP before slipping away to join her friends.

About 75 percent of the coastal strip's residents are refugees.

For the past three years, cash-strapped UNRWA has cancelled its previously annual seaside summer camps for lack of funding.

It now holds activities in its own schools.

It says the total cost of this year's three-week programme is $2.3 million (2.1 million euros).

For Hossam, 12, the camps are worth it.

"I'm happy to be here with my friends, he said. "We're going to play football."

Germany plans trauma center for 'Islamic State' rape victims

German Development Minister Gerd Müller has told a newspaper of the government's plans to create a care facility for the victims of "Islamic State" violence. Germany has the highest number of aslyum seekers in Europe.

Deutsche Welle, 22 Dec 2014

German Development Minister Gerd Müller told the mass-circulation newspaper Bild on Monday that Berlin has plans to create a trauma center in Germany for the victims of mass rape carried out by "Islamic State" militants (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

Müller said while on a visit to Iraq he spoke to five young girls who had been captured by IS and raped. Three of them were pregnant as a result.

"We have to take care of such girls," Müller told the paper, saying that a care facility in Germany could serve at least 100 women and girls.

He did not provide a timetable for the project nor did he say where in Germany such a facility would be established.

Müller's statements came after a United Nations report revealed last month the extent of the crimes perpetrated by IS on the people living in the cities and towns they capture. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a document full of harrowing descriptions of massacres, torture, sexual enslavement and forced pregnancy.

Influx of asylum seekers bring right-leaning protests

Germany is Europe's top destination for asylum seekers. Around 230,000 asylum applications are expected in 2015, up from an initial estimate of 200,000.

The increase in the flow of asylum seekers has spawned populist a movement, often called PEGIDA ("Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West"), which has held demonstrations against what they see as the Islamization of Germany in cities like Bonn, Düsseldorf, and Kassel.

In Dresden, the group has held protests some thousands strong every Monday for weeks. The movement is often accompanied by counter demonstrators under the banner of No-PEGIDA.

es/pfd (AFP, epd)

Australian Sailors’ Trauma Pulling Dead Asylum Seekers From Sea

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Dec 03, 2014

In this photograph taken on Feb. 8, 2014 an empty Australian lifeboat that carried
 asylum seekers turned back by Australian navy is docked at Pangandaran wharf
in West Java. (AFP Photo/Timur Matahari)

Sydney. Serving and former Australian navy personnel have described the trauma of stopping asylum seeker boats and pulling dead bodies from the water as the government ramps up its deterrence policy on migrants arriving by sea.

The sailors, some of whom have been discharged suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), told ABC television on Tuesday their health conditions were not treated seriously by commanders.

The men and women said the distress they suffered during the naval operations, which took place when the Labor party was in power from late 2006 to September 2013, was exacerbated by secrecy surrounding the country’s border protection policies.

A serving navy officer, who was given the name “Michael” to protect his identity, told ABC how his ship was delayed by 15 hours from boarding an asylum-seeker boat, only to find out that it had sunk 13 hours earlier.

“All we found was probably a line about 70 miles long of bodies,” he told the national broadcaster. “We fished them out for as long as we could, ’til we were full. And that wasn’t uncommon.”

Their insights came as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison sought to gain support Wednesday from the Senate for a bill widening the government’s maritime powers.

The bill reflects the hardening attitudes Australian governments have taken against asylum seekers attempting to enter the country by boat.

Only one boat has reached the Australian mainland since December, compared to almost daily arrivals previously under the Labor administration, when hundreds of people died en route.

Troy Norris, a sailor recently discharged for PTSD, spent 13 years intercepting and boarding asylum seeker boats and said his commanding officer “showed no compassion at all for my situation” when reading his termination letter.

“And that’s the kind a treatment I received. Getting rushed through because we were a liability.”

In a statement Wednesday, Australia’s chief of navy Vice Admiral Tim Barrett acknowledged the “arduous” nature of border protection work and said a tailored mental health support program had been set up for those involved.

“This program includes regular screening and follow-up mental health support where required,” Barrett said. “I believe it is a first-class system that is part of a broader approach to mental health across the Australian Defense Force.”

As part of the current conservative government’s tough policies, several asylum seeker boats approaching Australian waters have been turned back in a move it said would stop people from dying at sea while undertaking the treacherous journey.

The most recent case involved a people-smuggling boat carrying 38 Sri Lankans that was stopped northwest of the Cocos Islands two weeks ago as it made its way to Australia.

Agence France-Presse

Dutch doctors devise monitor to spot who wakes up during surgery

DutchNews.nl, Monday 22 September 2014

(NOS/ANP)

Leiden University teaching hospital researchers are developing a new method to warn surgeons that a patient may be waking up during surgery, the AD reports on Monday.

Every one or two weeks, a patient wakes up on the operating table at a Dutch hospital although doctors often do not notice because the patient cannot move, the AD says.

However, the impact on the person concerned is traumatising. ‘The experience can be traumatic, even if the patient does not feel pain,' said professor Albert Dahan. ‘They have nightmares, concentration problems and suffer from anxiety.’

Sweat

The warning system consists of a monitor which measures if the patient is feeling pain – one of the signs that they are awake. ‘It is a sort of lie detector,’ says Dahan.

The monitor registers small changes in heart rhythms, brain capacity, blood pressure and sweat. ‘If a patient is awake, they will be in stress and may perspire. That can also be a sign they are awake,’ Dahan said.

The monitor may be put into use at all operations in two years time, the AD says.

Children of Gaza face struggle to conquer war trauma

News.Net – AFP, Guillaume Lavallee, 3 August 2014

Palestinian children affected by the war gather around a UN volunteer at a
 school in Jabalia as part of a United Nations community mental health
programmes in the Gaza Strip, on August 2, 2014

Ask any child in Gaza to do a drawing and the resulting picture is likely to be a house being bombed by a fighter plane.

In the strife-torn Palestinian enclave, thousands of children are suffering from the trauma of war but resources to help them are scarce.

At a school in the northern town of Jabalia which has been converted into a refuge, specialist teachers hand out paper and coloured crayons to a motley band of shaken up children, asking them to draw whatever is in their head.

Jamal Diab, a nine-year old with red flecks in his brown hair, draws his dead grandfather. Under the drawing, he writes in Arabic: "I am sad because of the martyrs."

"A few days ago, aircraft bombarded our house. We had to leave quickly and leave everything behind. It was dangerous," the lad breathes timidly as he shows his drawing.

Tiny seven-year old Bara Marouf shows a drawing of his grandfather without any legs. He was seriously wounded in an air strike.

In the classroom, the same sketch comes up repeatedly: an aircraft filling the sky and bombarding a house, subtitled with the caption "I want to go home".

"Who is afraid of aircraft?" the teacher asks the children sitting in a circle on a mat.

Immediately little hands push towards the sky and high-pitched voices clamour: "Me", "me", "me".

"Me, I'm afraid of missiles and planes. Half our house was destroyed. We left it to come here," explains Itimad Subh, an 11-year-old girl with sparkling eyes.

'They blame themselves'

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, about 300 children have been killed since the start on July 8 of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants firing rockets into the Jewish state.

Those who are still alive try not to internalise too much the violence they have experienced, seen and heard.

Inside the school, groups of youths attend half-hour sessions one after the other.

The two teachers, patient and exhausted, their faces enclosed in a tight veil, ask the children to jump on the spot and call out, then to wave their arms like someone disco dancing, to expel accumulated black thoughts, frustration and stress.

"The children have all lived extreme experiences," says Dr. Iyad Zaqut, a psychiatrist who manages the United Nations community mental health programmes in the Gaza Strip.

"It is very difficult for children to grasp what is happening, why their life is at risk, why they have to leave their homes, why they have to resettle, why they witness very traumatising scenes," Zaqut said.

"To prevent children from processing and thinking about all these issues, we try to distract them, to help them live some joy, to have a little fun inside the shelter.

"Generally, when they are exposed to traumatic events, the way they perceive the incident can be very distorted, they might blame themselves, they might blame their neighbours and this blaming is very harmful," the psychiatrist said.

"We try to reprocess these distorted ideas," he explained, noting that he has diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress and adolescent depression.

No therapy in wartime

But it is hard to make much progress with the therapy.

In the Gaza Strip, 460,000 people -- more than a quarter of the population -- have been displaced by the fighting and have gone to stay with relatives or found refuge at UN shelters.

Fewer than 100 specialist teachers are "treating" more than 100,000 children.

Only in exceptional cases do the children have access to one-on-one meetings with psychologists and psychiatrists. And even fewer get a follow up.

Gaza has been in the firing line of military operations in 2008-2009 and again in 2012 but the consequences have been greater during this current war between Israel and Hamas.

UNICEF estimates that 326,000 minors in Gaza are in need of psychological help.

The children and adolescents sheltering in the UN centres can at least attend the group classes but hundreds of thousands of others affected by the war are left to wander unhelped through devastated neighbourhoods.

Govt commences construction of brain treatment center

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/01/2011

The Health Ministry began the construction of a hospital in Jakarta on Tuesday, which was expected to serve as the country's first national center for brain and nerve disease treatments.

“Up to now, Indonesia hasn't had a special, integrated center for comprehensive brain and nerve disease treatments. The center must operate according to evidence and be able to compete at the global level,” Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said during the groundbreaking ceremony of the National Brain Center Hospital in Jakarta.

Endang said that Indonesia required such a center as strokes had been the main cause of deaths and disabilities in nearly all hospitals across the country.

She said that the number of people experiencing strokes had been increasing each year, as was the number of those suffering from other neurological disorders, such as dementia and traumatic head and spinal injuries.

Endang said the hospital would provide comprehensive “brain check-ups” among other medical services, Antara reported.

Respiratory diseases plague Aceh’s flood victims

The Jakarta Post, Fri, 03/18/2011

Victims of a recent flash food in Pidie, Aceh are suffering from respiratory diseases, according to a local official.

“The majority of the flash flood victims are suffering from respiratory diseases, aside from diarrhea, malaria and trauma,” Aceh Health Agency chief M Yani said on Friday as quoted by kompas.com.

Nine health posts set up by the agency in Tangse, around 170 kilometers from the province’s capital, Banda Aceh, were monitoring the situation and had provided free treatment to about 230 people, mostly children and elderly, Yani said.

Kids in Padang Face a Different Kind of Earthquake After Shock

The Jakarta Globe, Angela Dewan

A young earthquake survivor showing a drawing. (Photo: Angela Dewan, JG)

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and young schoolchildren are staring to trickle into a park in Padang’s Alai Parak Kopi subdistrict, where a blue tarpaulin is held up with bamboo poles and rope.

The children run around, laughing and screaming with excitement. They come here three times a week after school to meet with other children in the community and play games organized by local nonprofit organization SurfAid.

What they think is just an afternoon of fun and games with friends is actually part of the organizations’s psychosocial pilot project. Most of these children are doing well, considering that, just two months ago, an earthquake wreaked havoc on their neighborhoods, bringing homes to the ground. But many children are still struggling.

“We did assessments in four areas of the city, and we found high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Stacey Howe, a SurfAid program coordinator with a background in counseling. “We found that in these four areas, 53 percent of kids had post-traumatic stress disorder. The worse-hit areas had higher levels.”

Yaya, a psychologist, walks around the children with a loudspeaker and instructs them to sit in a circle. On this day, they have to draw a picture of someone close to them with the crayons provided. Child psychology students from local universities have volunteered their help, circling the tent and monitoring the children’s behavior.

“Kids here are still very afraid,” Yaya said. “There are kids who are showing abnormal behavior, like they won’t go inside, or if they hear a loud noise, like a plane, they think another earthquake is coming.”

When SurfAid did their initial assessments, Howe said, many children had begun wetting their beds and many were unwilling to leave their parents’ side.

“When we started the activities, we got the kids to sing and dance, but sometimes they would bully each other, so we focus now on less physical activities,” Howe said.

The drawing activity helps the children develop fine motor skills, but it also offers Yaya and the other volunteers an insight into each child’s psychological state.

“The other day, we asked the kids to draw their families, and one kid pulled out a red crayon and drew his father falling out of a helicopter,” said Matt Hannon, also a SurfAid program coordinator. “It might not mean anything serious, but they’re looking into it.”

Howe and Hannon — an Australian couple who met in Jakarta as international students — were living in the Mentawai Islands, around 150 kilometers west of Padang, when the quake hit. After the disaster, the two 25-year-olds relocated to the city, where residents are receiving little aid.

Most nongovernmental organizations have based themselves north of the city in Pariaman and Agam, the worst-affected districts, leaving some urban areas neglected. SurfAid has finished its emergency disbursements and is now running programs that require little funds.

“We’re only doing this in four parts of the city. Unfortunately, our resources are limited,” Hannon said. Word of what SurfAid was doing spread quickly through the city, and elementary schools have been asking them to run similar programs for their students.

Hannon and the volunteer psychologists recently visited the SD05 Padang Pasir elementary school to run similar activities. Around 60 students gathered in a hall to sing songs about disaster preparedness.

“If you feel an earthquake, cover your head and run away from the window. Run outside, run outside,” Yaya and the children sang in Indonesian.

Yaya later instructed them to sit down, close their eyes and take a number of deep breaths as soothing traditional Padang Saluang music filled the air. A few children refused to close their eyes and simply stared straight ahead as Yaya spoke.

“We are trying to teach the children a way to deal with anxiety, because many kids are still feeling stressed,” she said.

SurfAid’s project is likely to last six months, and Howe and Hannon fear these communities they have come to know well will be left without support.

Recently, SurfAid organized a day for Padang’s Banuaran community to come together. “We had an event where the women cooked for 300 people. We bought all the ingredients, and the men helped set up the tents,” Hannon said.

It was the first time the community had gathered since the quake.

“The idea is to bring people together so they can move forward together into the future,” he said. “We’re trying to convey to them that it’s OK to feel anxiety. That time heals the heart.”

Referral opens trauma treatment center

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Smarting from flaws in the trauma healing of victims of disaster, Ciptomangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) introduced Tuesday a post-traumatic stress clinic offering a new approach to mental illness.

Apart from victims of disaster, the clinic seeks to treat victims of domestic violence.

RSCM managing director Akmal Taher said the clinic would not only provide medical treatment, but would also serve as a center for studies on post-traumatic stress.

The clinic, the first of its kind in Jakarta, is meant to be the national referral center for treatment of post-traumatic stress, Akmal said.

Over the last two years, the state-owned hospital has treated nearly 1,000 victims of abuse, mostly women and children, with 80 percent of them having been victims of domestic violence.

The coordinator of the clinic, Suryo Dharmono, said over 60 percent of violence victims were likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress, a psychological disorder marked by three main symptoms: avoidance, hyper arousal and flashbacks that last for more than a month.

"Psychological treatment for these victims of violence was previously neglected. We used to only have the psychiatry department, which patients don't want to be referred to, as they don't think they're suffering from mental illness.

"That's why we decided to open this clinic, which provides comfortable, private waiting and consultation rooms, and is separated (from other sections of the psychiatry department), just exactly as the patients need," said Suryo.

He said without proper treatment, victims of violence, especially children, could experience permanent negative changes in behavior and become perpetrators of abuse when they grew up.

Akmal said 50 percent of people living in disaster-prone areas might suffer from significant psychological stress, with the number of those experiencing post-traumatic stress ranging from 10 to 30 percent.

Suryo added that 37 percent of the victims of the 2004 Aceh tsunami were still suffering from post-traumatic stress even though three years had passed since the deadly catastrophe.

The clinic will also be open to individuals traumatized by other events, such as terror bombings, riots, social and political conflicts and traffic accidents.

Akmal said the clinic would apply both psychotherapy and pharmaco therapy in treating patients, depending on the results of early assessments.

The former would include cognitive behavior therapy, prolonged exposure therapy, counseling, homecare and hotline services, while the latter would include the use of anti-depressants.

The clinic, whose establishment received support from the Pfizer Foundation, is open to low-income patients holding either Gakin or Askeskin cards.

Gakin is the healthcare for the poor funded by the Jakarta administration, while Askeskin is funded by the central government. (wda)