Updated: 03/09/09 08:03 AM

Researchers to seek determining factors

By Lou Michel

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/601766.html 

Soldiers who survive the battlefield too often return home only to kill themselves.

Now researchers at the University at Buffalo are trying to find a way to determine which veterans are most likely to harm themselves.

“Suicide among returning veterans is a big problem,” said researcher John M. Violanti. “On their psychological evaluations when they return, there is only one question on suicide, ‘Are you depressed?’ Who is going to answer that?”

By using a Harvard University computerized test that measures how quickly an individual experiences thoughts of self-harm while performing a given task, Violanti said mental-health professionals might be able to detect “under the radar” suicidal thoughts.

“This new test gets to real feelings at a subconscious level,” said Violanti, a former State Police officer who has studied suicide among cops for years.

He plans to administer the test to 3,600 returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in New Jersey, starting this summer. Army statistics show that as many as 24 soldiers committed suicide in January 2009 alone.

Similarly, little is known about the long-term consequences facing veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, which sometimes coincide with mental-health issues.

Thousands of U. S. combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered traumatic brain injuries, known as TBIs, from roadside bomb explosions, and the result is devastating in terms of navigating everyday life.

These service members often experience diminished memory, shortened attention spans and inability to make decisions. Like vets at risk for suicide, TBI victims sometimes slip through the cracks after returning home.

“Symptoms associated with mild TBIs often can be overlooked in deference to more obvious visible injuries,” said Kerry T. Donnelly, an adjunct assistant professor in UB’s department of psychiatry and the Graduate School of Education.

The government has done well in addressing major physical injuries, such as the loss of a limb, she said, but brain injuries can involve more subtle cognitive and psychological difficulties that are often hard to detect.

With a $1.4 million grant from the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Donnelly will study some 500 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans over the next four years.

Among the goals of the study, Donnelly said, is to determine the reliability of the VA’s screening tool for brain injuries, how the patient utilizes available health care for the symptoms and quality-of-life issues.

The study is intended to identify “symptom clusters” that take into account cognitive, psychological and physical ailments in order to come up with specified treatments for these individuals, said Donnelly, who also works as a VA clinical neuropsychologist.

“There really just isn’t a whole lot of long-term research on this group of veterans,” she said. Of the 500 vets, about 200 will be from the Buffalo Niagara region.

Brain-injured vets whose emotional capabilities have been diminished could also end up relearning some interpersonal skills through yet another initiative under way at UB.

Barry Willer, a UB psychiatry professor, says his study involves training individuals to recognize facial expressions in others and to respond appropriately.

The technical term for this ability is “affect recognition.” Brain-injured individuals often are unable to identify compassion or danger when they observe the facial expressions of others. Instead, Miller said, they react with confusion or indifference.

Miller’s 108 study participants will view faces on a computer screen and be asked to study different parts of the face and react to them by naming the emotions they see in the eyes or the set of the mouth.

“To know what the other person is feeling,” Willer said, “you have to know what you’re feeling. Individuals who don’t know how to recognize anger won’t recognize it in themselves, and in fact can’t produce it.”

Other participants will be asked to read stories and share what emotions they think might be embedded in the story.

All of the study participants will be tested regularly to chart whether they are relearning appropriate emotional responses. The study will take three years to complete and is funded through a $600,000 grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation.