samedi 11 novembre 2017
Important Facts About PTSD That Might Save You From a Misdiagnosis
Although there's increased talk around the diagnosis and treatment of common mood and mental disorders like anxiety and depression, there's still a lot of work to be done to raise awareness. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), for instance, is still almost exclusively associated with soldiers returning from active combat, despite the fact that it affects eight percent of Americans at any given time, according to PTSD United. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America notes that PTSD is the fourth most common mental health disorder affecting people in the US.
Considering how common of a mental health problem it is, POPSUGAR asked Dr. Rafael Euba, consultant psychiatrist at The London Psychiatry Centre, to clarify some prevalent queries regarding PTSD.
What causes it?
While PTSD can be caused by traumatic events such as sexual assault, violent personal attacks, or witnessing extreme violence, Dr. Euba told POPSUGAR that PTSD can also be caused by "life-threatening medical diagnoses, such as cancer and other diseases where life expectancy is reduced, and traumatic treatment." PTSD can also be triggered by any event that causes you to feel fear, such as "emotional experiences of loss, abuse, or bullying at home or in the workplace."
What are the symptoms?
Much like depression and anxiety, symptoms of PTSD can be both physical and psychological, with "flashbacks, sweats, palpitations, heart racing, and sleeplessness" being the most overt symptoms, but Dr. Euba says you should also be mindful of behaviors such as "being on guard at all times, restlessness and irritability, or flashes of anger," as these may also be symptoms of PTSD presenting itself.
Is PTSD similar to depression?
According to Dr. Euba, many suffering from PTSD often misdiagnose themselves with depression, but the two are distinctly different, with PTSD being caused by traumatic events and depression being triggered by a variant of life events that aren't limited to traumatic ones. Dr. Euba stresses that people be mindful of not dismissing a possible PTSD diagnosis as mild depression "because of the prevalence of depressive episodes" because it's common that "if you have PTSD, you can experience depressive symptoms," but the two are not interchangeable.
How is it treated?
Unlike depression, PTSD isn't normally treated with antidepressant medication, but if your symptoms include depressive episodes, depending on their severity, you may be prescribed with an antidepressant treatment to treat that first. PTSD-specific treatments include the two options of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which respectively "helps patients to identify and cope with thoughts, behaviors, and emotions" and "helps to change the way traumatic memories are stored in the brain, making them easier to manage."
Articles
0 comments:
Enregistrer un commentaire