Word: stressfully
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Call it "Katrina stress" or the "Katrina funk", but it's all too real - and it has real implications for the future health of the city. While the physical devastation of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina has been well documented, the psychic toll is just becoming clear. The suicide rate has nearly tripled, depression is common, domestic abuse is on the rise, and self-medicating with booze is a favored method of forgetting...
...middle-class people and professionals who once had secure jobs, nice homes and lots of insurance. Now they come for the free care, complaining of a bad back or a general weakness, then end up "losing it," he says, sobbing uncontrollably about lives that have become marathons of stress. One bad day can set them off. "Nobody has emotional reserves these days...
...Charles Parent, the fire superintendent for New Orleans, has seen the stress take its toll on his first responders as well. Over 40% lost their homes to Katrina; a third are still not able to live with their families. Yet, unlike the police force, not one left his job in the aftermath of Katrina. A majority saw someone die or suffer an injury during or after the storm, and 22% had to recover dead bodies. By June, all they were finding was bones in rubbish piles...
...weren't trained for," says Parent. A report by the Centers for Disease Control found that a quarter of the firefighters showed signs of depression, a third reported increased alcohol use, and nearly a half reported more conflict with a spouse. "There are different ways of measuring post-traumatic stress - difficulty concentrating, angry outbursts," says Parent, "but frankly, if they didn't show those signs, I would worry." He says firefighters who went through 9/11 in New York helped his men realize it wasn't "unmanly" to get help. Now nearly a half say they would seek mental health counseling...
...community is still very much in intensive care, but the mental health needs are crushing," says Donald Smithburg, head of the Louisiana State University Health Care Services division, which oversees the state's charity care system. The stress, he says, is felt beyond New Orleans. Emergency rooms as far away as Baton Rouge and Lafayette have mentally ill patients "boarding" for days in emergency rooms, waiting for hospital admission, because there are no available psych beds in the New Orleans area...