The Effects Of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

The diagnosis of PTSD requires one or more symptoms from three main categories. The first category is re-experiencing the event. This can include reliving the event through nightmares, upsetting thoughts, flashbacks, or anything that can remind the person of the traumatic event, making them have physical and mental reactions ("Post-traumatic Stress," 2014). Next, the second category is avoidance. The individual will avoid thoughts, activities, or conversations that can remind them of the traumatic event. The third stage to diagnose PTSD is increased arousal in your life including, a loss of interest in important things you need such as decreased sleep and being unable to concentrate in your day to day life ("Post-traumatic Stress," 2014). Major depression, substance abuse, and panic can also correlate with PTSD. This diagnosis requires these symptoms to be bad enough to interfere with your daily life and last at least a month.

At least 50% of all adults and children are exposed to a psychologically traumatic event (such as a life-threatening assault or accident, humanmade or natural disaster, or war). As many as 67% of trauma survivors experience lasting psychosocial impairment, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); panic, phobic, or generalized anxiety disorders; depression; or substance abuse.(Van der Kolk, et al, 1994) Symptoms of PTSD include persistent involuntary re-experiencing of traumatic distress, emotional numbing and detachment from other people, and hyperarousal (irritability, insomnia, fearfulness, nervous agitation). PTSD is linked to structural neurochemical changes in the central nervous system which may have a direct

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops after a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. The person who develops PTSD may have been the one who was harmed or the person may have witnessed a harmful event that happened to loved ones or strangers.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition caused by experiencing or seeing a terrifying event. It has been known to affect mostly war veterans but has also affected people who are not veterans. Rape victims and people who have suffered severe abuse have also been diagnosed with PTSD. In most cases, veterans have a higher percentage than others.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder(commonly known as PTSD) is disorder that occurs after an event which has had a traumatizing effect on an individual. A traumatizing event would include life threatening events, emotionally traumatic events, terrifying events, and even rape. The effects of PTSD are anxiety, violent rages, consistent nightmares, and terrifying flashbacks. Symptoms of PTSD usually emerge after 3 months after the incident, but symptoms can also be evident even years later. Individuals that experience a traumatic event are most likely to develop PTSD.

There are 4 components when diagnosing PTSD. A person that has had direct experience in a traumatic event or learn that the event happened to someone close to them. The other two components from the DSM are witnessing an event in person or having repeated contact to excruciating details of a disturbing incident. After someone has had one out of the four above than doctors look at the re-experiencing. There are several ways but only one is required when diagnosing. These ways include: images, dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks, and thoughts. People who have PTSD can trigger these re-experiencing’s by any number of things. It could be a firework going off, a familiar face, a photo graph or someone talking about a similar event. It is said that adults with PTSD re-experiences through observation while children’s can be triggered by play. These triggers need to be avoided. In the DSM-5 a person with PTSD may have a negative disposition. They may not be able to remember and important part associated with the event. PTSD leaves patients with abnormal behaviors. They can be careless or angry and even fearful. Another symptom is sleep deprivation. None of these can be associated with a medical condition or substance

To be diagnosed with PTSD, an adult must experience all of the following for at least a month or more after the trauma. At least one reexperiencing symptom such as flashbacks with or without physical symptoms, like racing heart, upsetting dreams, frightening thoughts, or sweating may disrupt a person’s everyday activity. The person

Post-Traumatic Stress Di-sorder is a syndrome exp-erienced by many veter-ans, and is a priority of a plethora of psychological researchers. The Diag-nostic and Statistical Man-ual of Mental disorders lis-ts eight criterion for this widespread mental dis-ease, including a stressor, meddling symptoms, ev-asion, amendments in provocation and react-ivity, and a duration of symptoms for more than a month. PTSD is often characterized by disrupt-ions in sleep patterns, with the traumatic event fre-quently popping up in the veterans’ nightmares.

To be diagnosed with PTSD the person doesn’t have to have all the symptoms but must have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, and the event had to have detrimentally affected the person emotional state. Then the person must have at least one of the re-experiencing symptoms, three of the avoidance symptoms, and at least two of the hyper-arousal symptoms, to be diagnosed. But the diagnosis of PTSD doesn’t rest solely on the symptoms themselves, there other factors that have to be taken into consideration as well. Some of the other the factors that have to be assessed before the diagnosis is given are: “how the person initially responded to the traumatic event, how long the symptoms have been experienced, and the extent with which those symptoms interfere with a person's life.”(Tull 2009) Once all the evidence of symptoms and other factors have been gathered

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

• Being afraid of things that remind you of the trauma, such as driving a car if you were in a car

In The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the definition of PTSD is rather unusual in that it lists the etiology of the disorder. The DSM-III states: “the essential feature [of PTSD] is the development of characteristic symptoms following a psychologically traumatic event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience.” PTSD affects up to 20% of people who experience trauma. However, among people who are victims of a severe traumatic experience, 60 – 80% will develop PTSD. According to the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War, “Every person has certain limits and it is almost certain that any person would develop PTSD if exposed to a sufficiently severe trauma.” There are three types of symptoms that must be present to diagnose PTSD. According to the DSM, “The first group requires that the veteran has intrusive thoughts about the event…nightmares or flashbacks in which the veteran feels like he…is reliving the event.” “The second group requires that the veteran avoids reminders of the trauma by either deliberately trying not to think about it, or avoids places and people that serve as reminders of it.” “The third group requires that the veteran experiences chronic physiological arousal as evidenced by difficulties sleeping, [or] outbursts.”

Posttraumatic stress disorder commonly known by its initials, PTSD is a mental health disorder experienced by many people after suffering or experiencing a traumatic life threatening event. According to the Nebraska Department of Veterans’ Affairs, people who suffer from this disorder can return to their normal life in a short period of time. If this occurs, the individual is not considered to have posttraumatic stress disorder, nonetheless if the symptoms of this psychiatric disorder last more than a month individuals most of the time are diagnosed with PTSD. If diagnosed, other conditions can occur along with PTSD. These include; depression, substance abuse, anxiety or even suicidal thoughts. Causes depend on the event the person experienced.

Individuals with PTSD persistently re-experience their traumatic event in their thoughts, perceptions, imagery, dreams, illusions, hallucinations, and flashbacks. They may experience intense physiological distress or reactivity to cues of the traumatic event. These individuals persistently avoid any stimuli associated with the traumatic event and use other mechanisms to cope with any situation or cue that recalls or contradicts their emotional or cognitive responses to the traumatic event (American Psychiatric Association [DSM-IV-TR], 2000). Individuals with PTSD also experience persistent symptoms of increased arousal, such as irritability and difficulty concentrating. These disturbances can cause significant distress in social life, the work place, and family systems. According to the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV-TR), in order for individuals to be diagnosed with PTSD they must experience disturbances and symptoms for more than one month (2000). Symptoms can be specified as acute (less than 3 months), chronic (3 months or more), or with delayed onset; in which onset starts 6 months after the actual stressor (DSM-IV-TR, 2000).

Seedat explains that “the disorder represents a pathological response to a traumatic event, characterized by symptoms of recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event (e.g. nightmares, a sense of reliving the experience with illusions, hallucinations, or dissociative flashback episodes, intense psychological or physiological distress at exposure to cues that resemble the traumatic event)” (Seedat, 2013). Seedat also states that other symptoms could be such things as avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma that you have experienced “(e.g. inability to recall important aspects of the trauma, loss of interest, estrangement from others)” (Seedat, 2013). Seedat mentions increased arousal as other PTSD symptom. This could include “(sleep disturbances, irritability, difficult concentrating, hypervigilance, and exaggerated startle response)” (Seedat, 2013). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) includes other symptoms that are characterized by cognition and mood of the individual. Seedat states that in order for an individual to be diagnosed