By Debbie Gregory.

Hundreds of veterans have found improvement for their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms and mental disorders through an experimental new electric therapy treatment.

Former U.S. Special Operations Forces personnel have received the treatment at the Newport Brain Research Laboratory, located at the Brain Treatment Center in San Diego, California.

Dr. Erik Won is the president and CEO of the Newport Brain Research Laboratory, the company that has developed the treatment called Magnetic EEG/ECG-guided Resonant Therapy (MeRT).

Former Navy SEALS represent the perfect test group for the experimental brain treatment. They enter the service in superb health and then embark on a course of training that heightens mental and physical strength and alertness. But due to their close range exposure to explosives, they often suffer from Persistent Post-Concussion Symptoms and PTSD

With ongoing FDA clinical trials to judge the efficacy and risks of MeRT, the technique could provide an alternative treatment for debilitating headaches, inability to concentrate, memory problems, depression, anxiety, anger, aggressiveness, attention deficit and difficulty sleeping.

Won’s therapy is administered by placing a flashlight-sized device near the skull and inducing an electromagnetic field that sends a small burst of current to the brain. Over the course of 20 minutes, the device is moved around the cranium, delivering jolts that, at their most aggressive, feel like a firm finger tapping.

Won, a former U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon, and his team have treated more than 650 veterans using MeRT. The therapy has shown big improvements in test subjects who have participated in the course of therapy that runs for five days a week, for about four weeks.

“It’s certainly not a panacea,” said Won. But he believes that MeRT could be used to replace other therapies, including drug therapy.

“I think, in the future, there will be a discussion about whether this should be first-line management. What can we do to address the functional issues at play? There’s a whole lot of science to do before we get there,” he said.

By Debbie Gregory.

The federal government is using emerging and innovative new technologies to improve government services. The goal is to make inefficiency, bureaucratic red tape and non-user-friendly services a thing of the past and to save money.

Digital processes are increasingly improving efficiency with pockets of automation already underway throughout the government. They are examples of efficiency and, in most cases, progress.

One example is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has already seen promising results from its experiments with robotics process automation (RPA) in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which evaluates applications for new drugs, generic drugs, and biologics. By developing a bot to automate the evaluation process, the agency was able to reduce the average processing time by 60 percent, saving 8,000 hours of manual work. This can also save lives.

Additionally, automation can make it much easier for the public to interact with government services and access more relevant information quicker. This would be extremely beneficial for the VA, which has been known for being backlogged regarding services, claims and benefits for years.

The federal government is serious about overcoming its inefficiency challenges and has already made encouraging steps to use automation in order to make government better.

“I think a lot of folks know the government is kind of almost staggering under the weight of all the paper we have,” said Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget.

Of course, with automation comes the elimination of jobs. But the key will be retraining.

“We have any number of new-type jobs that are being created around data, cyber, and even things like law enforcement that we struggle to fill,” Weichert said. “And if we’ve got a dedicated workforce who have passed our background checks, who want to be of service to their country, we need to figure out how do we have the agility to reskill employees, redeploy them, move folks around so that they have skills that are aligned to the 21st-century mission.”