News & Headlines

Ginger MacCutcheon had plans to spend decades as a military medic in the Women’s Army Corps. She enlisted right out of high school, leaving northeast Ohio at the age of 18. “I went off to boot camp dressed in a suit with matching luggage and shoes, just like Private Benjamin would go,” MacCutcheon said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, this is a great adventure I’m going on.’” That dream was cut short. MacCutcheon was raped repeatedly by commanding officers. The sexual harassment followed her from base to base. Years passed before she felt safe enough to confide in a colleague and was honorably discharged.

"That night we were notified, I had two conversations that I remember," Kristen Christy, Air Force spouse and master resilience trainer for the Air Force and the Army, recalled of the days following one of the worst days of her life. "One was a friend from church, and she came and said, 'Kristen, he's in the better place.' And in the rawness of the moment, I said, 'Why isn't the better place at home or at the dining room table?'" Christy's husband had killed himself three days before he was set to accept the rank of colonel.

People kept telling me to read “The Body Keeps the Score.” I was shocked at what it actually says.

Despite vowing to act fast, the firm that oversees the NFL settlement still delays and denies claims, The Post found, including because of players’ online activity.

A new study reveals a connection between a family history of mental illness and heightened aggression in individuals with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Sweeping new efforts to protect the brain health of service members, including stricter safety standards for existing and new weapons, were included in the annual defense policy bill approved by Congress this month. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which is expected to be signed into law before the end of the month, existing weapons would have to be modified to reduce blast exposure both for those using the weapons and those standing close by, and future weapons systems would have to be developed with brain safety in mind.

Sometimes it takes a good story to get people’s attention. That’s what University of Oregon (UO) researchers found when they launched a study on the most effective ways to get parents to take notice of the high risk of childhood concussions in sports, and what needs to be done to prevent injuries. Two UO associate professors from the school of journalism and communication noticed many parents disregard the warnings about concussions when it comes to their children participating in school sports.

Unable to find effective treatments at home, veterans with brain-injury symptoms are going abroad for psychedelics like ibogaine that are illegal in the U.S.

While helping with a training activity at the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Donnamarie Lovestrand saw more than a decade of inquiry put into practice. That inquiry began in 2011 when Lovestrand, now an associate professor of nursing at Pennsylvania College of Technology, was a staff nurse in the post-anesthesia care unit of Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital at Fort Polk (now Fort Johnson) in Louisiana. “It was not infrequent that I would have these soldiers who would wake up (from anesthesia) hallucinating that they were back on the battlefield – and there was nothing we could do to turn them around,” she said.

Nearly a quarter of women experience physical abuse from partners, and up to 90% of those women have had at least one concussion. Most don’t get screened or diagnosed.

After years of back and forth, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a clinical trial to determine whether cannabis helps veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). FDA Approves Cannabis Study for Veterans with PTSD This critical multi-state study, dubbed MJP2, will include more than 300 participants. The researchers argue it will connect the dots between real-world cannabis use and scientific theory. This connection could bring hope to the thousands of veterans struggling with PTSD. The FDA’s Division of Psychiatry Products greenlit the study after a hold in 2021 over regulatory concerns. But MAPS appealed the decision, which paved the way for the recent approval.

A new study out of Boston University’s CTE Center found an increased risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in male hockey players the longer they played the game.