via BoingBoing, I was pointed to Noah Shachtman's article at Wired, Army's New PTSD Treatments: Yoga, Reiki, 'Bioenergy'. Many veterans have suffered Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and more are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The military is funding investigations into "non-traditional" ways of treating these disorders.
Even proposals for wild-sounding "therapies using bioenergies such as Qi gong, Reiki, distant healing and acupuncture" would be accepted.
Someone alert Panda Bear and the team at Science Based Medicine.
But many of these treatments haven't been held up to much rigorous scientific scrutiny before. So the Army is looking to hand out $4 million in "seedling grants" to "conduc[t] rigorous clinical studies" into all sorts of "novel approaches." Projects "containing preliminary data" will be eligible for up to $1 million. But even "innovative but testable hypotheses without preliminary data" could get as much as $300,000. Proposals are due May 15.
"Music, animal-facilitated therapy, art, dance/movement, massage therapy, EMDR [Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing] program evaluation, virtual reality, acupuncture, spiritual ministry, transcendental meditation, [and] yoga," might all be considered worth of the military's largess. So would "biologically-based treatments, botanicals, and nutritional supplements for enhancing cognitive function and mood in patients with trauma spectrum disorders, including TBI and/or PTSD, depression, anxiety, and/or substance dependence/abuse." Even proposals for wild-sounding "therapies using bioenergies such as Qi gong, Reiki, distant healing and acupuncture" would be accepted.
The program also wants to investigate the "perceptions" of these treatments, and any "gender-specific implications and issues" involved. All "proposals must provide a clear justification and military relevance for the choice of therapies selected," the Army reminds grant applicants.
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