What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is pathological anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a horrifying event or ordeal in which severe physical harm occurred to a person or to a loved one, or was threatened of physical harm. The traumatic events experienced may be natural disasters, violent personal assaults, and severe accidents.

The anxiety patient initially responds with intense fear or horror. The person later develops a response to the event that is characterized by persistently reexperiencing the traumatic event, with the symptoms of hyperarousal, numbness, and avoidance.

People suffering with PTSD may startle easily, become emotionally numb lose interest in things they used to enjoy, become more aggressive, or even become violent.

Symptoms  of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

• Persistent distressing memories of the event.
• Avoidance of people, places, or activities that may trigger recollections of the event
• Irritability.
• Regressive behaviors.
• Difficulty in sleeping.
• Hypervigilance.
• Diminished interest or participation in important activities.
• Paleness.
• Lack of interest in normal/social activities.
• Intense fear or horror.
• Exaggerated startle response.
• Sense of having no future.
• Heart palpitations.
• Dizziness.
• Fainting.
• Bodily reactions that remind them of the traumatic event.
• Agitation or excitability.
• Difficulty concentrating.

Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD ):

Psychotherapy

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) includes a number of techniques such as cognitive restructuring, exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).In this therapy the patient is taught to identify and challenge problematic thinking patterns to reduce distress.

Exposure therapy is another form of CBT, involves careful, detailed, repeated, imagining of the trauma in a safe, controlled context to help the patient face and gain control of the fear and distress that was overwhelming during the trauma.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR ) involves elements of exposure therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy combined with techniques (eye movements, hand taps, sounds) that create an alternation of attention back and forth across the patients midline.

Pharmacotherapy

Medicines such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as fluoxetine (Prozac, Zoloft) have been found to be effective in treating PTSD. Anti-anxiety medicines may be useful, but some types, can be addictive such as benzodiazepines.