Five-Minute Stress Relief.com

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD) begins in the aftermath of a traumatic event (auto accident, being the victim of a violent crime, financial collapse, loss of home, bitter loss of long-term relationship, hurricane, tornado) or being a victim of a frightening experience (physical, emotional or sexual abuse, rape, exploitation through prostitution, cult-religious abusive experience) resulting in very high levels of agitation, never feeling safe (hyper vigilance), difficulty trusting others, unfocused fear about the future.

The individual may also experience emotional detachment or numbing of feelings (emotional disassociation), memory loss, excessive startle response, clinical depression and loss of appetite. PSTD symptoms can also include flashbacks, survival guilt and recurring dreams about the trauma.

Simply stated, certain experiences trigger an over-reaction of the fight-or-flight response releasing excessive amounts of adrenaline and cortisol, eventually leading to a depletion of the body’s levels of serotonin and other calming neurotransmitters.

Traumatic experiences that have been imprinted in the brain over many years (where the amygdala repeatedly sends neurotransmitters into the hippocampus to reinforce the traumatic memory) often become internalized, causing the brain to relive painful feelings during stressful situations. Vietnam veterans and women victims of sexual abuse showed an 8% shrinkage in the hippocampus.

In a study funded by the National Institute of Health, University of Michigan researchers report that following natural or man-made disasters 30-40% of adults directly involved are likely to suffer PSTD. Also 10-20% of rescue workers, and 5-10% of the general population may experience.

Also found in multiple studies, women have a higher occurrence of PTSD, as well as people with pre-existing psychiatric disorders and those with previous exposure to traumatic events.

As an example of people with prior exposure, Time magazine ran a report detailing how for many Vietnam veterans, the Iraq war is a traumatic trigger when war scenes are flashed on televisions, rekindling nightmares and flashbacks.  When a study at Cleveland State University surveyed Vietnam veterans, half of those interviewed commented that they experienced emotional distress over Iraq.

In fact, the Veterans Administration released data showing a 36% rise since 2003 in the number of Vietnam vets seeking help for PTSD. Veterans, along with their therapists, report watching coverage or reading about it provoke episodes of severe anxiety stress and hyper vigilance.

As mentioned earlier, individuals close to military men also contract PSTD in varying degrees. Dennis Kanke, a marine photographer, who regularly took pictures of bodies and war zones, was diagnosed by doctors as 100% disabled due to PTSD.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder also not limited to military soldiers, witnesses of a horrific event or victims of abuse. Doctors at Harvard Medical School, in their Harvard Health Newsletter, detail how PSTD can come about following a heart attack, stroke or heart surgery. In addition to causing emotional and psychological stress, PTSD can slow down the patient’s recovery and even speed up the progression of heart disease. As they explain, a unique problem of heart-related PTSD is the internal trauma component. The patient is always on guard for danger signs of a heart attack, like a racing heart or shortness of breath. Those patients feeling most intimidated, retreated from actions that made their heart beat faster, (like climbing stairs, making love, etc.).

Motor Vehicle Accidents Are Leading Cause of PTSD

Two psychologists have published their definitive second edition of Psychological Assessment and Treatment of Survivors of Motor Vehicle Accidents, published by the American Psychological Association, detailing their extensive review of motor vehicle accident survivors experience with medical treatment to recover from the psychological trauma caused by car accidents. In their two post-traumatic stress disorder studies, they examined 158 and 161 (respectively) seriously injured survivors of motor vehicle accidents, from the immediate medical treatment to four months following the event.

Among the second group, out of 161 people, 110 were diagnosed with PTSD, 33 were diagnosed with sub clinical PTSD and 18 were not diagnosed with PTSD. And of the 110 patients diagnosed with PTSD, 60% were also diagnosed with major depression. In their follow-up study of the 110 patients with PTSD, they found 95 % experienced moderate to high levels of anxiety stress when driving and actively avoided certain driving circumstance, like nighttime driving, driving on freeways or in bad weather. The authors concluded their study observing that PTSD caused by driving accidents is a serious mental health problem and, if not diagnosed, the traumatized person could suffer from a lifetime filled with PTSD, depression, chronic pain and sleep problems.

Other studies, like the National Co-Morbidity Survey that followed over 8,000 individuals, found that almost 40 percent of those not receiving mental health treatment for PTSD (resulting from a motor vehicle accident or another cause) within six years after the trauma, continued to suffer from PTSD as long as 10 years after the initial trauma.

High Percentage of U.S. Youth Report Symptoms of PTSD

A study of 4,023 adolescents (ages 12-17) published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology has found that 16% of boys and 19% of girls meet the criteria for post traumatic stress disorder, major depressive episode or substance abuse/dependence. The research, conducted by Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. and other members of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina were especially surprised by the major occurrence of PTSD in the national sample of adolescents. Almost 4% of the boys and 6% of the girls reported symptoms of PTSD in the prior six months, revealing that a high percentage of U.S. youth experience traumatic events and undergo major emotional responses to these incidents. Just under three fourths of all youths meeting the PTSD criteria also qualified for major depression, substance abuse/dependence or both. Their findings echo a large body of research data confirming a link between interpersonal violence (sexual and physical assault, witnessed violence) and mental health outcomes.

Childhood Sexual Abuse Produces PTSD and Defective Brain Structure

A team of Medical doctors, using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Topography (PET scan), participated in a clinical examination to measure both hippocampal structure and function in 33 women with, and without, early childhood sexual abuse and the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). (The hippocampus, a part of the limbic system located in the mid-brain region, stores emotional experience in long-term memory.)

Of the 33, 10 women had early childhood sexual abuse and PTSD, 12 women had abuse without PTSD and 11 women were without abuse or PTSD. All women underwent MRI imaging of the brain for measurement of hippocampal volume, four PET scans and hippocampus verbal declarative memory tasks.

The results showed that the victims of sexual abuse and PTSD had a failure of hippocampal activation and 16% smaller volume of the hippocampus, confirming prior data indicating deficits in hippocampal function and structure in victims of abuse-related PTSD.

© 2009 Five-Minute Stress Relief - All Rights Reserved

Sources: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) PTSD-Diagnosis and Symptoms National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov) Multifunctional Correlates of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience 2002 Apr;252(2):68-75 Immune Function in PTSD Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2006 July;1071:167-83 Traumatic Stressors and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms in Headache Patients Headache 2005 Nov-Dec;45(10):1365-74

Print PDF Page for: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder