Acupuncture in US Navy

Navy Psychiatrist's Acupuncture, Meditation Methods Embraced by Special Operators

Psychiatrist Capt. Robert Koffman has more than 20 years of operational medicine and combat stress expertise, but he’s probably best known for sticking lots of needles in special operators.

Koffman, a mental health expert at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence in Bethesda, Md., uses acupuncture to treat troops with ongoing psychological complications from traumatic brain injuries.

Talk therapy and medication have their place, he said, but he’s seen firsthand how alternative treatments such as acupuncture and meditation have helped troops manage their anxiety and chronic pain.

In December, U.S. Special Operations Command presented Koffman with the Patriot Award for his work with treating more than 600 special operators at NICOE since it opened in 2010. At any given time, 20 patients are rotating in and out of the facility.

“All of the individuals who come here, come here because they have not recovered sufficiently with the level of services at their particular duty station,” Koffman said. “We wish we would see more people, but our model is very intensive and doesn’t allow us to open our gates as widely as we’d like to.” He added that the center focuses its efforts on those “who are continuing to suffer despite the best efforts of their home station providers.”

With a referral from their primary care doctor, active-duty service members can come to NICOE on orders for four weeks of treatment. They’ll be evaluated over that time and sent home with long-term treatments and techniques to manage their conditions.

“The folks that come in here all have TBI, they all have some forms of psychological health [issues] and they frequently have co-morbidity of frequent pain made worse by years of insomnia,” Koffman said.

Navy Times spoke to Koffman earlier this year about about his career and approaches, from his first deployment to Kuwait in 1991 to the value of breathing techniques and acupuncture in treating TBI and PTSD. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity.

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