Episode 760

Finding the Way to Zero: PTSD Help That Works

Why watch: Explore PTSD treatment options and learn how listening with compassion can help veterans and families find a path forward.

The Doughboy memorial statue on the Memphis VA Medical Center grounds in a still from Finding the Way to Zero: PTSD Program

Episode 760 is devoted to post-traumatic stress disorder — understanding it, treating it, and responding to it with skill and compassion. Finding the Way to Zero: PTSD Program comes from the Memphis VA Medical Center’s suicide-prevention series, showing veterans exactly where to find help. The PTSD Treatment Decision Aid, from the VA National Center for PTSD, walks viewers through proven treatments — therapies such as Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure, and medications — so patients and providers can choose together. Recognizing Trauma and Symptoms of PTSD and Responding to Trauma Disclosures, from the VA Office of Rural Health’s Late Life PTSD Educational Films, teach families and caregivers how trauma can re-emerge as veterans age, and how to listen with empathy when someone finally tells their story. For veterans and their families, the program says plainly: help exists, and it works. For VA partners, healthcare providers, veterans’ organizations, broadcasters, sponsors, and funders, it shows how one broadcast can move a viewer from silence to treatment.

In this program

Finding the Way to Zero PTSD Program
PTSD Treatment Decision Aid
Recognizing Trauma and Symptoms of PTSD
Responding to Trauma Disclosures

Sound Tips™ Companion

During this broadcast, the Sound Tips™ ticker explains how trauma and hearing health intersect. About 6 out of every 100 U.S. adults will experience PTSD in their lifetime; among veterans the rate is about 7 out of 100, rising to as many as 29 out of 100 for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Roughly one in three veterans receiving care for tinnitus also carries a PTSD diagnosis, and veterans with PTSD report more sound-tolerance problems — ordinary sounds can feel startling or overwhelming. Blast exposure links the two conditions directly: service members exposed to blasts report twice the prevalence of hearing difficulty, and research shows much of that connection runs through PTSD itself. Injured personnel with hearing loss in both ears have nearly three times the odds of a PTSD diagnosis. PTSD can also heighten how burdensome hearing problems feel, even when a hearing test reads normal — hypervigilance changes the experience of sound. Tips: sudden loud sounds can trigger symptoms, so hearing care should be predictable and consent-based; treating PTSD often improves hearing outcomes too; and veterans can reach VA hearing and mental health care directly. If someone discloses trauma, listen without pressing for details, believe them, and help them connect to care.

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