Health Highlights: Aug. 8, 2014

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

Vietnam Vet Study Shows PTSD Can Last Decades

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans can last for decades, according to a new study that looked at Americans who served in the Vietnam War.

Researchers found that most of the 11 percent of veterans who had PTSD a decade or more after that war showed little improvement since then, The New York Times reported.

More than 18 percent of Vietnam veterans with PTSD had died by retirement age, a rate about twice that of those without the disorder, according to the study to be presented Friday at an American Psychological Association meeting.

Vietnam veterans especially likely to develop PTSD included members of minorities who enlisted before completing high school, and those who had killed multiple times in combat, The Times reported.

The researchers said their findings from the Department of Veterans Affairs-funded study have implications for the United States as it deals with veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This study shows us what the road ahead is going to look like,” Dr. Charles Marmar, one of the study authors and chairman of psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center and director of the NYU Cohen Veterans Center, told The Times.

“A significant number of veterans are going to have PTSD for a lifetime unless we do something radically different,” he said.

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Spanish Priest With Ebola in Stable Condition

A 75-year-old Spanish priest infected with the Ebola virus was reported in stable condition in a Madrid hospital after being airlifted from Liberia in West Africa on Thursday morning.

Father Miguel Pajares was “a little disoriented” and feverish, but wasn’t bleeding, according to Rafael Santamara, a Spanish medical official, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The priest flew to Spain on an air force jet. In order to avoid exposure to the deadly Ebola virus, health care workers transporting Father Pajares wore protective body suits and carried the patient in a sealed-off bubble stretcher.

After landing in Spain, the priest was taken from the air force base to the hospital in a convoy of medical and police vehicles, WSJ reported.

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