Study finds ‘Battlemind’ is beneficial

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Study finds ‘Battlemind’ is beneficial
By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, February 17, 2009

HEIDELBERG, Germany — New training intended to reduce post-combat psychological distress provides "small but significant" improvements in soldiers’ mental health, according to a study.

Among soldiers who returned from Iraq and participated in "Battlemind Training," fewer reported sleep problems, and there were less-severe post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, compared with soldiers who had received either no post-deployment mental health training or a briefing about stress, according to research psychologists with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

"We’ve completed three groups of randomized trials which have demonstrated that Battlemind training has a positive impact on soldiers’ mental health months later," said Amy Adler, a lead researcher on the project. "The effects are not huge. We’re not curing disorders."

The study found that in soldiers who had seen extensive combat, Battlemind training resulted in a 14 percent reduction in severity of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

And while 60 percent of soldiers without the training reported sleep problems, just 30 percent of those who’d had the Battlemind class said they were having trouble sleeping after returning home.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60765