Providers and Researchers

Combat Stress Injuries

This presentation examines the common stressors of operational military deployments, from the merely annoying through the potentially devastating, and places such experiences in their context defined by military cultural values and identity. The normal process of adaptation to stress is described, and it is contrasted with the injuries that can be inflicted on the mind and brain when adaptive capacities are exceeded. The three major mechanisms of stress injury are listed, and the effects of one of them (traumatic stress) are described in detail.

Author:

William P. Nash, M.D.

Dr. Nash has completed nearly thirty years of active military service, including as Captain in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps. More...

Goal:

This course presents a model for discriminating normal, adaptive responses to combat and operational stress from those that entail injury to the mind and brain, and it provides a language for labeling operational stress reactions that destigmatizes without trivializing potentially serious problems.

Objectives:

After viewing the presentation, the participant will be able to:

1. Describe the major stressors of combat and operational military deployments, and of subsequent homecoming
2. Describe the two main reasons for the gap between relatively frequent adverse stress responses during deployment and relatively mental health diagnosis and treatment after deployment
3. Describe the three tactics of normal adaptation to stress, and the normal time course for adaptation and re-adaptation
4. Describe the differences between normal adaptive responses to stress and those that are symptomatic of a stress injury, and list the three common mechanisms of stress injury
5. Describe the major components of traumatic stress injuries, and the nature of the biological and psychosocial damage such injuries entail

For continuing education (CE) credits read the brochure required for this course.

Download course module with instructor's narration

(ZIP file - 30.7 MB)

Download Transcript (PDF)

Abbreviated instructions:

1. Download ZIP archive of module
2. Unzip ZIP archive of module
3. Double-click to open "nash_combat_stress_a.pps" (do not move files out of folder)

Read complete instructions

How to obtain Continuing Education Credits

Continuing education credits can be earned for this course. For more information and step-by-step instructions, please visit the CE Credits page.