Army colonel designs computer program that identifies PTSD

Nov. 29--When Kathleen Putnam Foreman graduated from a tiny high school east of Houston in 1978, the petite homecoming queen and class president wasn't considering a career in the male-dominated military.

Yet this year she became one of only a few hundred women promoted to the U.S. Army rank of colonel.

While she's never seen combat, Foreman is a highly trained sociologist whose latest work at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio can mean the difference between life and death for some soldiers.

For the past seven years, Foreman has helped develop a unique computer screening program designed to identify soldiers like her late father, a career U.S. Marine and Vietnam veteran whom she says suffered needlessly from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.

"My life is a testimony to what can happen to a family when there's no treatment," said Foreman. "But it doesn't have to be that way. Nobody has to maintain that tough-guy persona, being strong and just sucking it up. A real sign of strength is getting help."

When Foreman's father, Clement Putnam, retired after three combat tours in 1973, he did not receive a hero's welcome or get any help reintegrating back into the civilian world.

"People called soldiers baby killers and would spit on them back then," said Foreman.

Her father returned home agitated, verbally abusive and drank heavily to mask the pain of what she now recognizes as PTSD.

He also went from having his wife and six children being sheltered in military housing to living just above the poverty level on a modest pension.

"He was unable to find a job for the first four years," Foreman said. Eventually, her father got a steel inspector job but never really worked steady.

To survive, her family would go hunting in East Texas and then pluck, package and freeze the meat from several hundred ducks to last through the winter.

"I can't eat duck anymore after having to look at it every day," she said.

'A tough life'

Her father never wanted his children to go into the military.

"He thought the military was a tough life, although he was proud of his service," Foreman said, adding that his truck always bore a bumper sticker with the Marine motto, "semper fi."

After graduating from Hull-Daisetta High School, Foreman decided to become the first of her family to put herself through college. She earned both a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in sociology.

Enlisted as medic

Her first connection with the military came in 1986, when she enlisted as a medic in the Army to earn $24,800 for college expenses.

Upon completion of her master's degree in 1993, she was invited to re-enlist as a social work officer in the U.S. Army Reserves. Foreman liked the idea and worked the next decade at various military installations, treating soldiers at risk for domestic violence and child abuse issues.

Her father, who had long struggled with PTSD, died in 2004. During that same year, Foreman was mobilized to active duty and assigned with helping soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan make the transition from combat to home life.

Emphasis on that transition has become more critical in recent years after the military released data showing America has lost fewer soldiers to combat in Afghanistan than to suicide. Records show soldiers are dying from suicide at a pace of about one every 18 hours (a total of 266,810 between 2000 and 2012).

"Suicide is a complex phenomenon that defies easy solutions," said an Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen J. Platt.

Adverse behaviors

In response to the soldier suicide rate, Foreman worked with Dr. Rene Robichaux to perfect the computer screening tool known as Behavioral Health Risk Management.

The program asks soldiers 55 questions for which "yes" answers, based on scientific research, could show an inclination for adverse behaviors from suicide to domestic violence.

"Even if a soldier lies about whether he's had suicidal thoughts, it might still identify him as vulnerable if he's having trouble sleeping, experiencing high levels of pain and had a traumatic brain injury when deployed," said Foreman.

Of 3,200 soldiers who have answered the computerized questions to date, 10 percent were identified as "high risk" and 20 percent as "moderate risk" for possible adverse behaviors, she said.

Saving lives

Currently, soldiers returning to San Antonio and requiring six months of rehabilitation are participating in the computer screening at the U.S. Army Medical Command in San Antonio.

"I'm not aware of any other military branch doing this risk management, and we're working on integrating through all the services," Foreman said.

While acknowledging no program can be a perfect predictor of someone's future actions, Foreman believes it has already saved lives and restored families.

"If my father had ever been assessed while in the military, he might have received treatment early and not gone through all the agony," she said.

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