Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Case Study

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a common anxiety disorder characterized by chronic physical arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts and images of the traumatic event, and avoidance of things that can call the traumatic event into mind (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, & Nock, 2014). About 7 percent of Americans suffer from PTSD. Family members of victims can also develop PTSD and it can occur in people of any age. The diagnosis for PTSD requires one or more symptoms to be present and crucially interfere with living a normal life ("Post-traumatic Stress," 2014). Women usually experience PTSD more commonly than men after being exposed to trauma. Examples of PTSD could be veterans from war experiencing traumatic

Most of the time the victim “experiences intense fear, helplessness, and/or horror following the traumatic event or accident.” If the event was a near death experience, caused a serious injury, and/ or the witnessing of someone else going through that can cause these symptoms. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder “involves re-experiencing, avoidance, and arousal.” Re-experiencing is when you feel like the event is happening again. Just a simple sound, smell, or sight can bring on the re-experiencing. Avoidance is when you avoid “thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the event.” Also many people will avoid place that remind them of the event. Arousal is when you have trouble sleeping, sudden anger burst, struggling with focusing on the task at hand, an being startled easily. These symptoms can cause “distress and impairment in social areas of functioning.” Sometimes they feel “guilty that they survived while others didn’t.” (Magill’s Medical

When someone hears about Post Traumatic Stress disorder, they assume it only affects those in active duty or military veterans. However, it can affects those who have seen natural disasters, severe child abuse and horrible events. The national comorbidity survey replications did a survey on how many people in the US have PTSD they say, “(NCS-R), conducted between February 2001 and April 2003, comprised interviews of a nationally representative sample of 9,282 Americans aged 18 years and older. PTSD was assessed among 5,692 participants, using DSM-IV criteria. The NCS-R estimated the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among adult Americans to be 6.8% (1). Current past year PTSD prevalence was estimated at 3.5% (2).The lifetime prevalence of PTSD among men was 3.6% and among women was 9.7%.

This can happen in one of four ways. The first way is direct exposure, or being the person responsible for another's death. The second is witnessing it in person. The third is indirect, as in learning a family member was exposed to this trauma. The fourth way is repeated or extreme indirect exposure to traumatic events, such as first responders to an accident. Criteria B is known as the intrusion symptoms, where the event is relived in one of the following five ways. The first is recurrent memories, most of them involuntary. Next is traumatic nightmares about the event, and its details. The third way is through dissociative reactions, also known as flashbacks to the event, and can occur in brief flashback episodes to full loss of awareness to their surroundings. Number four is prolonged stress due to the event, and the last way is physiological reactivity after the exposure of a traumatic event. Criteria C is called avoidance, where you exhibit one of the two following symptoms. You will either have thoughts or feelings related to the trauma or physical reminders of the traumatic event, such as people, places, or things. Criteria D is negative changes in moods or comprehension, that have worsened after the event, and has seven symptoms. The first one is the inability to recall key details of the event or the day of the event, this is sometimes referred to as dissociative amnesia. Second is

For centuries the world has combated various physical injuries, saving lives but until the twentieth century little was known about the emotional effect on soldiers. PTSDs longest dated back case was the writings of a Greek soldier fighting in the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, reportedly went blind after the man standing next to him was killed The blinded soldier "was wounded in no part of his body." and so had just been the first man to experience PTSD. Dating back the first name diagnosis was nostalgic or homesickness followed by shell shocked, combat exhaustion, and stress response syndrome the medical field more advanced leading to figuring out that the reaction is from our body trying to deal with what was happening. As time went on the medical field was furthered and now have what is known as PTSD the mental sickness that Plagues are

This cause included actual threatened or serious injury, threat to one’s physical integrity, witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or threat to the physical integrity of another person, also learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury experienced by a family member or other close associate. For example, I have friends that lives in Chicago. They always tell me how violent some parts of the area arevery dangerous. A couple of years ago I was told that one of my friends witnessed our friend getting shot to death. Now my friend can’t sleep at night, he has vivid memories of the moment it happened even if it was years ago. When we go through things in our life it puts us in different spaces which can be hard for an individual to move on from. Examples of traumatic events experienced directly include military combat, violent personal assault (sexual assault, physical attack, robbery, mugging, being kidnapped, being taken hostage, terrorists attack, torture, incarceration as a prisoner of war or in a concentrationcamp, natural or manmade disasters, severe automobile accidents. Examples of events experienced by others that are learned about. Learning of a violent personal assault, serious accident, or serious injury experienced by a family member or a close friend, learning about a sudden, unexpected death of a family member or close friend, learning that one’s child has a life-threatening disease. One learned event that has personally affected me has to be the death of my mom. My mom’s death was unexpected. When we go through things it makes us feel anavoid in our lives, at least that’s how I feel. I feel like a piece of my heart is gone from that experience. It was also traumatizing learning that one of my close friends from childhood was been molested by her father for years. When I found out about my friend going through that it made me very scared

3-7) These symptoms fall into the requirements of the DSM-IV-TR (text review) that defines the cause of PTSD as “the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others. The person’s response involved intense fear, hopelessness or horror.” (McClay, 2012

However, researchers have also found a way of things to help prevent the development of PTSD known as resilience factors. These factors include seeking out support from other people (especially loved ones), feeling good about one’s actions at the time of the event (don’t feel guilty), find a way to learn from the event and utilize it, and being able to react and respond effectively despite the overwhelming feeling of

This stands out as a public health challenge due to the sizeable amount of individuals affected by PTSD. It is prevalent in 2% of the US population, which is roughly 7.7 million people in the United States alone. (Ghaffarzadega,2016) The highest rates of PTSD are found in survivors of rape, combat, and captivity. (DSM V) The military has estimated

Avoidance and numbing represent a flight response to stimuli associated with the traumatic event(s). In fact, avoiding people,

Some experiences, like the sudden, unexpected death of a loved one, can also cause PTSD. Symptoms usually begin early, within 3 months of the traumatic incident, but sometimes they begin years afterward. To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have at least one reexperiencing symptom, one avoidance symptom, two arousal and reactivity symptoms, or two cognition and mood symptoms. A few examples of re-experiencing symptoms would include flashbacks, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts. These symptoms can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings and may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. Signs of avoidance symptoms could be staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the experience, and avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the traumatic event. For example, if someone were to witness or be involved in the event of a robbery, they might try to stay away from that store because they don’t want to have to be reminded of the memory. Arousal and reactivity symptoms include being easily startled, feeling tense or “on edge,” having difficulty sleeping, and having angry outbursts. These symptoms will constantly remind the person of the event, and may make it hard for them to sleep, eat, or concentrate during their daily life. Cognition and mood symptoms can make the person feel alienated or detached from friends or family members. They can cause people to lose interest in

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is a silent assassin in which those around the victim have no idea what is taking place within their minds. Only those closest to the person recognize that there is something wrong. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders diagnoses PTSD as persistent re-experiencing of the trauma, efforts to avoid triggers related to the trauma, and hyperarousal or increased reactivity (Reddy, 2014). PTSD is associated with exposure to a traumatic event and in some cases, symptoms of the disorder can take months or years to appear and even longer for the individual to seek help. PTSD is a very common occurrence in veterans, especially veterans who engaged in

Avoidance: trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event; avoiding places, activities or people that remind you of the event.

Over the years its name has changed a few times, from war fatigue and shell shock to current day post-traumatic stress. This is a disorder that affects veterans especially, but it can affect anyone who has experienced something extremely traumatic. Sometimes the condition doesn’t show itself until years after the trauma originally occurred, although it is different for everyone. It is important to understand what causes this disorder, and be able to identify the characteristics of this disorder so you can treat it properly.

A physical indicator of this type of symptom is nightmares in which the individual relives the event. Re-experiencing symptoms are often triggered by a sound, sight, or event that causes the individual to relive the initial trauma. For example, triggers might include a seemingly trivial occurrence such as hearing a car backfire which could resurface memories of gunfire for a combat war Veteran, or seeing a car accident which can remind a crash survivor of their own accident (Friedman, 2007). The second type of symptom frequently occurring in individuals with PTSD is avoiding situations that serve as a reminder of the initial event. Individuals with this symptom may choose to purposely avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the initial traumatic event (Friedman, 2007). For example, a person who underwent a devastating earthquake may avoid watching television shows or movies involving earthquakes. Also these individuals may simply attempt to stay extremely busy to avoid having to think or to talk about the traumatic event that occurred. The third type of symptom most often experienced by individuals is emotional numbness (Friedman, 2007). Often victims of PTSD find it difficult to accurately express their feelings. Consequently, not only is it easier for these individuals to avoid expressing their feelings, but it also allows them to avoid memories of the catalytic event. Individuals