Noteboom The Law Firm

VA Offering 2 New PTSD Therapies

February 25, 2011 - Neither therapy is new, but they're both new to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) offerings for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment. Following the release of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on PTSD treatment, the VA will now offer cognitive processing therapy and prolonged-exposure therapy as viable treatment options for PTSD. 

The 2 therapies are very similar in their approaches. Cognitive processing therapy was born out of the theory that PTSD is formed in conflict between what the patient's beliefs were prior to the trauma and the information the patient gathered after the trauma. Treatment has the patients write about their traumatic event using as many specific details as possible, and then constantly reading that writing out loud both in and outside of their designated therapy session. Patients undergoing Prolonged-exposure therapy are forced to face their traumas in various ways head on as opposed to avoiding them. 

Average estimations show approximately 20% of veterans from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom suffer from PTSD at a level requiring treatment. That number will continue to grow for the immediate future and the more treatments available, the better the chances of helping more veterans. In 2005 the government spent $9.9 million researching PTSD, whereas in 2009 they spent $24.5 million. The increase is not only due to the amount of veterans who are suffering from PTSD but also the fact that not all veterans respond to the same types of PTSD therapies, which is why having diverse treatment options is so crucial.   

The VA is not obligated to follow the GAO's recommendations, even though their recommendations were based on information given to them by the VA. The GAO's report did explicitly state both cognitive processing therapy and prolonged-exposure therapy were very effective in treating PTSD.