Blog

Questions about the mental health of the soldier accused of killing 16 civilians, including women and children, during a shooting and stabbing rampage in Afghanistan are beginning to emerge. According to lawyers for the soldier, he had suffered a brain injury during an early deployment to Iraq.

It's not clear at this moment, just how far this brain injury defense is going to take this soldier. It wouldn't be the first time that veterans who have suffered brain injury in the battlefield, have been involved in assaults and other incidents of violence, and also not the first time that brain injury will be used as part of the defense in such cases.

There is little information about the soldier who was involved in the attack. All that California veterans benefits lawyers know is that he's a 38-year-old staff sergeant from the Lewis-McChord base in the US State of Washington. He is the father of 2. His lawyers say that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury during a deployment to Iraq in 2010.

Aggression has been linked to traumatic brain injury for a while. Several studies also indicate that people who have a predisposition to depression, and hostility are more likely to suffer from aggression-related behaviors after a traumatic brain injury.

In veterans, the risks of aggression after a brain injury may be even higher, because of a number of other factors. Veterans may be more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which is also linked to aggression. Additionally, veterans are also likely to have the tools necessary to carry out attacks. For instance, they may have access to guns, and may have knowledge of how to use these weapons. Veterans who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder are also at a higher risk of substance abuse and alcohol abuse, which are also predictors of violent behavior.

New research seems to indicate that veterans, who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health disorders, may be at a high risk of addiction to opioid painkillers.

According to the study, veterans who need painkillers, and suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems, are much more likely to be prescribed strong opioid painkillers. Some of these painkillers including Vicodin and OxyContin have already been linked to many cases of abuse and addiction. Persons who have been advised strong painkillers like these can get addicted to the pills, with a real potential for overdose. OxyContin, in particular, has been linked to many fatal overdoses.

When veterans, who suffer from mental health problems, including symptoms of post- traumatic stress disorder, are prescribed strong painkillers, the risk of addictions and overdoses is even higher.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The researchers analyzed data involving 141,000 veterans. All the veterans had been treated for pain-related issues at Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers between 2005 and 2010. Some of these veterans had also been diagnosed with a mental health problem.

Close to 16,000 patients were placed on a program of opioid painkillers that required them to take the painkillers 3 times a week. The researchers found that less than 7% of veterans without post traumatic disorder or other mental-health disorders were prescribed opioid painkillers. However, close to 12% of veterans who suffered from depression or anxiety were given the opioid painkillers. People suffering from PTSD had the highest rates of painkiller prescriptions, at about 18%.

The study seems to indicate to California veteran’s benefits lawyers a sense of recklessness while treating veterans with pain issues. Currently, the system doesn't take into consideration individual concerns, and a veteran’s likelihood of becoming addicted to painkillers, before these potent drugs are prescribed.