Acute Stress Disorder

Acute stress disorder (ASD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by a cluster of dissociative and anxiety symptoms occurring within one month of a traumatic event.

Acute Stress Disorder is a variation of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that lasts for a minimum of 2 days to a maximum of 4 weeks, and occurs within 4 weeks of the initial stressor. The initial traumatic event must have involved actual or threatened death or serious injury of self or another person, and the person must have felt fear, helplessness or horror.

Diagnostic Criteria For Acute Stress Disorder:

• The person experienced or was confronted with an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury.
• The person experiences persistent thoughts, images on exposure to reminders of the traumatic situation.
• The symptoms significantly interfere with normal social or vocational functioning.
• The person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
• The symptoms last between two days and four weeks.
• The person avoids the stimuli that arouse recollections of the trauma.
• Marked increase in symptoms of anxiety.
• Acute stress disorder develops within one month after an individual experiences or sees an event that involved a threat or actual death, serious injury or another kind of physical violation to the individual or others, and responded to this event with strong feelings of fear, helplessness or horror.

Symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder Include:

Symptoms for diagnosis of acute stress disorder must persist for a minimum of two days to up to four weeks within a month of the trauma.

• Memory and reaction time are all affected.
• Sense of numbness or detachment.
• Reduced sense of surroundings.
• Sense of being unreal.
• Irritability.
• Depersonalization.
• Derealization.
• Impairs our work performance.
• Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.
• Trouble in experiencing pleasure.
• Recurrent thoughts, dreams, images.
• Difficult to concentrate.

Treatment of Acute Stress Disorder:

Treatment of Acute stress disorder usually has a behavior therapy focus but in some instances drug therapy may also be tried.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy: People with Acute stress disorder are gradually introduced into the very situation that normally causes them anxiety. Through this they learn how they can control their anxiety while gaining greater and greater exposure to their phobic situation. Behavior therapy can be extremely effective when used in conjunction with relaxation techniques.

Medication: Medications such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) or imipramine, benzodiazepines, can be very effective in helping people control their anxiety.