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FDA approves Deep Brain Stimulation to relieve Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Last week The Food and Drug Administration approved Minneapolis-based Medtronic's Reclaim Deep Brain Stimulator device as the first implant to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, which causes uncontrollable worries, such as fear of germs or dirt.

Patients suffering from the disorder try to relieve their anxiety with obsessive behavior, such as washing their hands or checking locks repeatedly.

"These are obtrusive thoughts that take control of people's lives to the point that they lose their jobs, can't have relationships and in many cases, can't even leave their homes," said Dr. Hooman Azmi of Hackensack University Medical Center.

Shaped like a pacemaker, the Reclaim device is implanted under the skin of the chest and then connected to four electrodes in the brain. The electrodes deliver steady pulses of electricity that block abnormal brain signals.

Similar devices have been used since the 1990s to treat movement disorders like Parkinson's disease and tremors. But where prior devices target areas of the brain that deal with movement, Medtronic said its product delivers electrical signals to areas that control mood and anxiety.

"What deep brain stimulation does is modulate those circuits that we believe are hyperactive in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder," said Paul Stypulkowski, the company's senior director of research.

U.S. Soldier Suicide Crisis: High Suicide Rate For Iraq War GIs

Here is another sad story about American soldiers in Iraq and self-inflicted suicide.

Texas Army Specialist Joseph Suell told his mother he wasn't cut out to fight the Iraq war.

"He said 'Momma I haven't killed anybody here and I hope I never have to kill anybody,'" said Rena Mathis. Instead, the 24-year-old husband and father of three apparently took his own life.

"The cause of death is Ibuprofin and amphetamine. Self-inflicted overdose. The Pentagon says self inflicted overdose," said Mathis, reading a military document on her son's death.

Since the war in Iraq began, 519 American soldiers have died in the line of duty. But there are questions about how many soldiers were suicides.

The Army has not released the findings of a mental-health team that went to Iraq last fall. And some charge the Pentagon is not telling the whole story. The Pentagon counts at least 22 GI suicides in the Iraq conflict -- 19 of those Army troops -- most after major combat was declared over last May.

What the Pentagon does not count are stateside soldier suicides. GIs who took their own lives after duty in Iraq. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center two hospitalized Iraq war vets hung themselves.

An army study three years ago forecast an impending soldier-suicide crisis, but critics say it was largely ignored until more than 600 U.S. soldiers began being evacuated from Iraq for psychiatric reasons.

Reading her son's last letter helps Rena Mathis make peace with his death. "I think God just took him away from that battlefield, that's what I think," Mathis said. "I think God just said 'C'mon let's go, it's not for you.'"

But she can not forgive an army she believes could have done more to bring him back alive.