THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996             TAG: 9608070388
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A7   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: CHICAGO                           LENGTH:   50 lines

NERVE TROUBLES PLAGUE NAVY FLIERS WHO WERE POWS

Navy pilots who were POWs in North Vietnam are developing an unusual number of nerve problems in their arms and legs, probably because of the leg irons, handcuffs and other restraints used by their captors, researchers say.

The former prisoners of war also are developing more late-appearing arthritis and back problems than pilots who weren't taken captive, according to the study in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

But the POWs seem to have no higher rate of psychological problems than pilots who were not imprisoned, researchers said.

That does not necessarily mean that torture was less traumatic than previously believed. Rather, being a pilot who wasn't captured may have been traumatic as well, said an expert not associated with the study.

``These pilots who weren't POWs underwent a lot of stress. There were people trying to kill them day in and day out,'' said the expert, Dr. Joseph Westermeyer, chief of psychiatry at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The physical problems probably result from the ropes, ratchet handcuffs, leg irons or stocks used to restrict blood flow to the extremities in a painful form of torture, as well as from beatings and being suspended in air, the researchers said.

The study, led by D. Stephen Nice of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, involved 70 former naval aviators who were taken prisoner and 55 naval aviators who served in Vietnam but were not POWs. The study followed the men from 1979 to 1993.

When the Navy POWs were first examined in 1978, five years after their release, they seemed to have no more physical problems than non-POW pilots.

But later, they were found to be 8.4 times more likely to have nerve problems in their extremities, 1.8 times more likely to have back pain and 1.5 times more likely to be suffering from difficulties in their joints.

The nerve problems involved numbness, tingling pain or muscle weakness.

Fourteen percent of the subjects had psychiatric illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, stemming from the war, the researchers said.

That is far less than the 56 percent to 71 percent of World War II POWs who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, the researchers noted. World War II POWs tended to be younger and lower-ranking, so the new study supports the belief that training and life experience may protect against psychological damage.

The study's findings cannot be applied to Army and Marine POWs who were held in South Vietnam, where the conditions of captivity were different from those in North Vietnam, the researchers said. by CNB