Posttraumatic stress disorder Research Essay

223. 4 jillion U. S. citizens bedevil motherd a traumatic event at to the lowest degree formerly in their lives. This is more or less 70% of adults in the USA. Today 31. 1 million people atomic number 18 struggling with Post Traumatic Stress ailment (posttraumatic stress disorder) (Rosenthal). posttraumatic stress disorder is defined as re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal, due to a traumatic event. The signs argon either great lasting or give birth a slow down onset (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). A traumatic event that involves actual or jeopardise death or serious injury to self or others, stomach create intense feelingings of tutelage, helplessness, or horror (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012).This traumatic event indeed can lead to a serious disquiet disorder such(prenominal) as posttraumatic stress disorder. Examples range from witnessing another individual in a bearing or death crisis to experiencing a life or death crisis first. temporary hookup posttraumatic stress dis order affects a enceinte percentage of the gentlemans population, charterly recorded incidents are placed in statistics. However around the world traumatic events are not uncommon, with the cases of genocide in Rwanda to war lacerated counties in the Middle East, and all the way back to the survivors of 9/11 and US troops back from Iraq, it is no wonder that PTSD is unrivalled of the most common disorders.This paper impart summarize prognostics, causation, saloon and sermon of PTSD. Thither are four main categories that the symptoms of PTSD are as manakin into. The first is re-experiencing the traumatic event or incident. There are a few different ways one can re-experience the trauma. just ab place may repeatedly visualize dingy images of either the incident or something closely related. There may be a constant sentiment of the event as it unfolded. Some may focus on how they could collect done things differently assuming there might have been a better ending or the event would have been avoided entirely.Others will experience horrifying dreams or night terrors that will either be an exact flashback from the traumatic event or a metaphor of some sort that is equally traumatic. For example, a woman with PTSD who was a paramedic and was dispatched to the jibe of the twin towers on 9/11 experienced nightmares of a squeeze out breathing dragon. A friend of hers stated that it was as if there was a fire breathing dragon with all the fire and trauma that engulfed the paramedics (Psych science lab Video Case).Last are flashbacks that one will re- experience. Flashbacks are fulminant memories during which the trauma is replayed in images or thoughts often at full motional intensity (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). The next symptom of PTSD is avoidance. One who suffers from PTSD will avoid all stimuli associated with the trauma. This means avoiding feelings, thoughts, people, places, and activities that remind them of the trauma. One critical symptom of av oidance is a numbing of responsiveness or emotional anesthesia, which causes sufferers to drop off from others and hide or conceal their emotions. This is known to have a large effect on family and loved ones who attempt to help (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). The last symptom of PTSD is arousal or anxiety.PTSD is grouped in the DSM-IV-TR as an anxiety disorder because of the effects of arousal and the secondary anxiety it causes. solicitude may show itself through hyper-vigilance, restlessness, agitation, irritability, exaggerated startle responses, and excessive fear reactions to unexpected stimuli (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). In order to assess and diagnose a individual with PTSD, a person must re-experience the traumatic event at least once, they must have at least three symptoms of avoidance, two hyperarousal symptoms, and symptoms that take form it hard to go about their daily life such as school, work, etc. nimh. nih. gov).If a majority of the worlds population experiences some(p renominal) or at least one traumatic event, how is it that not everyone germinates PTSD? There a few factors that cause PTSD. Trauma is necessary for PTSD to develop except is not the only cause (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). Social factors allow the amount of trauma the individual would be subjected to. For example, a police ships officer would have a higher rate of growing PTSD because of the pictorial matter they commit themselves to as part of their career. Individuals are more likely to develop PTSD depending on the severity of the event.Some people can be categorized as risk takers which would make them more vulnerable to create PTSD such as a police officer or paramedic. Other risk factors include having a history of mental illness, acquiring hurt, living through traumas, having no social support or dealing with extra stress after the traumatic event such as loss of loved one (nimh. nih. gov). Prevention of PTSD is possible and hazard can take place that would help indivi duals prevent the disorder from developing even though traumatic events that could lead to PTSD are mystical or may come as a surprise.Federal mite Management Agency (FEMA) provides mental health assistance after a tragic event. An early intervention is critical. Incident stress debriefing is a five hour group meeting where citizens share events and tragedies after a disaster (Oltmanns & Emery, 2012). Police officers and all emergency personnel are inclined some sort of PTSD prevention therapy (Sanford). This is due to the fact that they have a high risk movie to traumatic events. Treatment for PTSD varies and there several different types of psychotherapies that can be utilise to work on the disorder as well as medication.The main therapy currently used is cognitive processing therapy, or CPT. Cognitive processing therapy can be done in an individual or a group setting. A therapist will help a longanimous reevaluate how they feel about a traumatic situation. For example, ma ny victims of sexual violence and muck up place the blame on themselves. The efficacy of the therapy has held up. Recently, Congolese women who survived the intense difference in their country and were subjected to rape and sexual violence underwent months of CPT to ease the post-traumatic stress.The results were promising, though the women appeared to respond better to the group therapy. After four months, the proportion of women with probable PTSD dropped from 60 percent to 8 percent in the cognitive processing therapy group the proportion of those with depression or anxiety plummeted from 71 to 10 percent. Their functional impairment scores dropped by half. In the women who authoritative individual support counseling, rates of probable PTSD, depression or anxiety declined less, from 83 percent to about 54 percent. (Seppa, 2013) Another helpful PTSD therapy is Prolonged Exposure Therapy or PE.PE requires the patient to expose themselves to safe plainly uncomfortable situatio ns that they have been avoiding due to their PTSD. The patient is in like manner taught breathing relaxation behavior techniques in order to lessen the anxiety associated with reintroducing themselves to traumatic tasks (U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs). The patient is also asked to talk repeatedly about the traumatic situation which eventually leads to habituation or a neutral response to the once minus stimuli. Medication is the other option for treatment of PTSD. Though it is not on the whole curable, it can be managed by a wide variety of medications.Currently, the demo base is strongest for the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The only two FDA clear medications for the treatment of PTSD are sertraline (Zoloft) and paroxetine (Paxil) (1, 2) (Jeffereys). There are also some obstacles to overcome in getting patients to best respond to this treatment. Patients are often concerned about the side effects of the medication, about cultivation to rely on the medication rather than fixing the root problem, about getting addicted and they may begin to abuse the medications by alloy them with alcohol if the PTSD is severe (Jeffereys).In addition, recent studies have suggested that long term exposure to anti-depressants may actually hamper a patients ability to respond positively to therapy (Nauert, 2013). A new teaching conducted by researchers at Emory, University of Miami and Scripps Research Institute has showed promise in prevention of PTSD. The results of the study suggest that exposing victims of trauma to morphine immediately after experiencing the distressing event may do more than just ease carnal pain. Morphine may also play a role in fear learning.When the drug was administered to a group of mice after exposure to a stressful event, they could still learn to become afraid of sounds and shocks, but the fearful memories were not as durable and the mice did not freeze as much in response to the sound alone two days later, even if they had been previously exposed to stress (Eastman , 2013). Some other out of the box potential treatments include channeling all energy into martial humanistic discipline training or service dog training (London, 2013). The idea here would be to distract the brain away from the negative thoughts by snap all the patients resources into positive activities.