Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not sure how much time I have, but if I can, I will just say that there were a lot of comments about the number of medications that patients are sometimes taking. I think it's important to focus not necessarily on the number of medications but really on the risks and benefits

Veterans Affairs committee  I never thought of it in that way, but that's a very interesting question and comment. I think that, for a lot of veterans, a need to control their environment often has to do with their symptoms. One of the potential symptoms of PTSD is hypervigilance, constantly scanning for t

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll comment on a few things, and I know I will have to do this very quickly. In terms of family support, I think it's clear that not only with mental illness but if anybody has a significant medical problem, it affects not only them but those around them. What we identify as th

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, it would be for sure, and not just me: if they needed care and were waiting to seek treatment, for sure.

Veterans Affairs committee  One thing I've already indicated is adopting, as we're trying to do within Western, a zero suicide strategy. There is an excellent website that you can get more information from, and I can provide it for the committee to review. It's really the general consensus that suicide is p

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the simple answer would be yes. Cognitive behavioural psychotherapy is one of the treatments provided across Canada, especially within the network of clinics.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a good question: does delayed treatment affect overall treatment outcome? Put another way, does chronicity—how long you've had an illness—have an impact on treatment outcome? When we looked at our treatment outcome research, chronicity was not shown as a predictor of treatme

Veterans Affairs committee  As a clinician and a psychiatrist—it's also done by psychologists when we're doing a diagnosis, but probably more so as a psychiatrist—we look at the entire person and do a complete medical history. Part of it would be looking at exposures. I'm not an expert in mefloquine; howeve

Veterans Affairs committee  I would try to consider all potential issues, because we haven't touched here on the whole area of mild traumatic brain injury. As a clinician, you would also do a thyroid function test to make sure that has not been affected, because it will present as depression also. Is that

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. I'm sorry.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not sure if you're asking in terms of the personal self-care of clinicians and staff. Is that what you mean?

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. I think for anybody who's in the clinical business of treating traumatized individuals—and this is not just in the military context, but in the civilian context as well—it's knowing yourself and knowing your limits. It's having a good clinical team and peers that you can re

Veterans Affairs committee  On a regular basis within our team at Parkwood, and I'm assuming across the different clinics, we discuss good cases, those that are a success, and we also discuss those that are a very big challenge in order to learn from them.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I should have written those down. You asked multiple questions.