Healing Veterans Requires Caring For The Whole Person

Wayne Jonas August 2019 on www.healthaffairs.org

A new, integrative approach to care is changing the way veteran and military health care is practiced.

Nearly a decade after returning from the war in Afghanistan, Sergeant Carlson still wore the wounds on his face. Not physical scars, but a sallow slackness in his complexion and a hollow-eyed expression that mostly conveyed exhaustion and defeat. He had long been suffering from anxiety, depression, and serious complications of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an all-too-familiar condition among the thousands of veterans whom I’ve treated. But he had not come into the clinic for that. His presenting complaint was “back pain…”

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