ptsd

With nearly 1.8 million U.S. soldiers having rotated through Iraq and Afghanistan and another troop escalation expected in coming weeks, researchers are doing double-time to define the causes of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to better serve troops returning from war. With two wars going and no end in sight, scientists have quite an abundance of subjects on which to carry out their research.

Psychiatrists have long observed that clinically depressed people speak in a certain slow, halting monotone pattern. Now voice-analysis software could pick up on those cues over the phone and alert nurses to possible depression in existing patients.