Starting last week, we’re featuring an article about a disease seen on the weekly Grey’s Anatomy episode. This time we’ll deal with post traumatic stress disorder, or in short PTSD.
Danger level: Medium
What is it?
PTSD is a disorder in which people constantly relive in their minds a traumatic event they have gone through.
Who gets it?
PTSD happens to people who have experienced trauma. The trauma can be either one of those:
- Watching the death or serious injury of someone, or going through a severe injury or a life threatening event yourself.
- Learning about an unexpected or violent death, serious harm or a threat of death to someone close to you (a family member or a close friend)
Examples of such events include natural disasters (such as hurricanes, earthquakes), violent personal assaults, war, road accidents, or being diagnosed with a life threatening condition.
Studies found that as much as 30% of men and women who spent time in a war zone experience PTSD.
What causes it?
Our brain has many areas, each responsible for a different property. One of these parts is an area called the amygdala. Its role is to store memories related to emotional events. Our thought of fear of something is expressed through the amygdala.
The brain. The place where the amygdala resides is marked in red.
In PTSD, exposure to the traumatic event leads to fear conditioning – we relive the fear through the amygdala. It works over time.
There are other systems in the body responsible for PTSD, but we won’t go into details here.
How does it feel?
People with PTSD have frequent memories that replay the trauma they have been through. These can be nightmares in which they relive the event, or flashbacks, in which they relive the event while awake, which sometimes causes them to react as if in the original situation (if you’ve seen the strangling scene in Grey’s Anatomy you got a good example of that).
To not have to relive this, people with PTSD usually avoid situations that might remind them of the trauma. They won’t talk about things related to their experience, and will avoid anything that triggers the flashbacks.
They will often feel emotionally numb and disinterested in daily activities. They will also have high arousal, meaning that they will be overly alert.
This video from the New York Post about war veterans experiencing PTSD explains it:
How is it discovered?
There are criteria that a person needs to fulfill in order to be diagnosed with PTSD, most of which was mentioned here (exposure to trauma, reliving the event etc.). If a person fits these criteria, he is diagnosed with PTSD.
How is it treated?
PTSD is treated with psychotherapy – meaning sessions with a psychiatrist. There are many types of therapy that can succeed here. One of them is called exposure therapy, in which the person with PTSD is exposed to situations they usually avoid because of PTSD with the help of the therapist. With time it helps lessen the distress.
There are also drugs that can be used, similar to those used in anxiety.
What happens after treatment?
It varies. Some people will recover over a period of years even without treatment. Many people who get treatment recover completely. The average duration of the condition in people receiving treatment is around 3 years (it’s almost twice for those not treated).
Some patients never fully recover.
The bottom line: How do I avoid it?
Some studies show that early therapy for people who have suffered trauma may prevent PTSD. It’s important to seek medical help if you’ve been exposed to any sort of trauma.
What next?
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