Post traumatic stress disorder

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Posttraumatic stress disorder is a mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, or other threats on a person's life. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or dreams related to the events, mental or physical distress to trauma-related cues, attempts to avoid trauma-related cues alterations in how a person thinks and feels, and an increase in the fight-or-flight response. These symptoms last for more than a month after the event. Young children are less likely to show distress, but instead may express their memories through play. A person with PTSD is at a higher risk for suicide and intentional self-harm.

Most people who experience traumatic events do not develop PTSD. People who experience interpersonal trauma such as rape or child abuse are more likely to develop PTSD as compared to people who experience non-assault based trauma, such as accidents and natural disasters. About half of people develop PTSD following rape. Children are less likely than adults to develop PTSD after trauma, especially if they are under 10 years of age. Diagnosis is based on the presence of specific symptoms following a traumatic event.

Prevention may be possible when counselling is targeted at those with early symptoms but is not effective when provided to all trauma-exposed individuals whether or not symptoms are present.The main treatments for people with PTSD are counselling (psychotherapy) and medication. Antidepressants of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor type are the first-line medications for PTSD and result in benefit in about half of people. Benefits from medication are less than those seen with counselling. It is not known whether using medications and counselling together has greater benefit than either method separately. Medications, other than SSRIs, do not have enough evidence to support their use and, in the case of benzodiazepines, may worsen outcomes.

In the United States, about 3.5% of adults have PTSD in a given year, and 9% of people develop it at some point in their life. In much of the rest of the world, rates during a given year are between 0.5% and 1%. Higher rates may occur in regions of armed conflict. It is more common in women than men. Symptoms of trauma-related mental disorders have been documented since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. During the World Wars, the condition was known under various terms including "shell shock" and "combat neurosis". The term "posttraumatic stress disorder" came into use in the 1970s in large part due to the diagnoses of U.S. military veterans of the Vietnam War. It was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III).

Symptoms

Service members use art to relieve PTSD symptoms.See also: Psychological stress and sleep Symptoms of PTSD generally begin within the first 3 months after the inciting traumatic event, but may not begin until years later. In the typical case, the individual with PTSD persistently avoids trauma-related thoughts and emotions, and discussion of the traumatic event, and may even have amnesia of the event.[citation needed] However, the event is commonly relived by the individual through intrusive, recurrent recollections, dissociative episodes of reliving the trauma ("flashbacks"), and nightmares. While it is common to have symptoms after any traumatic event, these must persist to a sufficient degree (i.e., causing dysfunction in life or clinical levels of distress) for longer than one month after the trauma to be classified as PTSD (clinically significant dysfunction or distress for less than one month after the trauma may be acute stress disorder). Some following a traumatic event experience posttraumatic growth.

Risk factors

No quieren (They do not want to) by Francisco Goya (1746–1828) depicts an elderly woman wielding a knife in defense of a girl being assaulted by a soldier.

Persons considered at risk include combat military personnel, victims of natural disasters, concentration camp survivors, and victims of violent crime. Persons employed in occupations that expose them to violence (such as soldiers) or disasters (such as emergency service workers) are also at risk. Other occupations that are at higher risk include police officers, firefighters, ambulance personnel, health care professionals, train drivers, divers, journalists, and sailors, in addition to people who work at banks, post offices or in stores. The size of the hippocampus is inversely related to post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment success; the smaller the hippocampus, the higher risk of PTSD

Regards,
John George
Journal of Trauma and Orthopedic Nursing
Email: editor.jton@emedsci.com
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