Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after someone experiences a traumatic event that caused intense fear, helplessness, or horror. PTSD can result from personally experienced traumas (e.g., rape, war, natural disasters, abuse, serious accidents, and captivity) or from the witnessing or learning of a violent or tragic event.

While it is common to experience a brief state of anxiety or depression after such occurrences, people with PTSD continually re-experience the traumatic event; avoid individuals, thoughts, or situations associated with the event; and have symptoms of excessive anxiety. People with this disorder have such symptoms for longer than one month and cannot function as well as they did before the traumatic event. PTSD symptoms usually appear within three months of the traumatic experience; however, they sometimes occur months or even years later.

How common is PTSD?

It is estimated that between 2 percent and 9 percent of the population has had some degree of PTSD. However, the likelihood of developing the disorder is greater when someone is exposed to multiple traumas or traumatic events early in life (or both), especially if the trauma is long term or repeated. More cases of this disorder are found among people who have recently emigrated from troubled countries. Women seem to develop PTSD more often than men.

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

Although the symptoms for individuals with PTSD can vary considerably, they generally fall into following categories:

• Re-experience - Individuals with PTSD often experience recurrent and intrusive recollections of and/or nightmares about the stressful event. Some may experience flashbacks or other vivid feelings of the event happening again. Others experience great psychological or physiological distress when certain things (objects, situations, etc.) remind them of the event.
• Avoidance - Many individuals with PTSD may persistently avoid things that remind them of the traumatic event. This can result in avoiding everything from thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the incident to activities, places, or people that cause them to recall the event. In others there may be a general lack of responsiveness signaled by an inability to recall aspects of the trauma, a decreased interest in formerly important activities, a feeling of detachment from others, a limited range of emotion, and feelings of hopelessness about the future leading to depressive disorder. Individuals with this disorder may also be at an increased risk for suicide.
• Increased arousal - There is difficulty in falling or staying asleep, irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, becoming very alert or watchful, jumpiness or being easily startled. In such those with PTSD often use alcohol or other drugs in an attempt to self-medicate.

How is PTSD treated?

There are a variety of treatments for PTSD, and individuals respond to treatments differently. PTSD often can be treated effectively with psychotherapy or Medicationor both. Medications commonly used to teat PTSD are: Escitalopram, Sertraline, Lorazepam, Clonazepam.

Behavior therapy focuses on learning relaxation and coping techniques. This therapy often increases the patient's exposure to a feared situation as a way of making him or her gradually less sensitive to it. Cognitive therapy helps people with PTSD take a close look at their thought patterns and learn to manage negative and nonproductive thinking.