Characteristics Of PTSD

1039 Words3 Pages

The goal of the research encountered in this paper is to expose the characteristics of PTSD, understand the symptoms and why it affects the everyday life of a human, diagnose and assess the symptoms of PTSD, how to live with a family member struggling with the disorder, and ultimately respond with solutions to assert PTSD and help cure the mind of a patient suffering from this mental disorder. PTSD is a disorder that affects the areas of the brain in which it is in constant stress and mental pain. The psychology of PTSD is enforced to patients because of the dangers that it may cause. Therefore, as a mental disorder, PTSD is a force to be reckoned with because of its nature to the patients afflicted by the disorder. As a result, people should …show more content…

The Institute of Medicine (2006) states that there is another disorder in which has similar characteristic to PTSD named Acute Stress Disorder or ASD (p. 13). Although similar, ASD is considered the beginning stage of PTSD since it can only be diagnosed during the first month or so (Institute of Medicine, 2006, p. 13). As ASD progresses, it tends to lead to PTSD where one first becomes exposed with the disorder but when this happens, the symptoms tend to get more severe such as nightmares or flashbacks of the event that traumatized the patient (Institute of Medicine, 2006, p. 13). As a result, throughout a diagnosis for PTSD it is apparent that one must take in to consideration all the symptoms that is evident, for some symptoms might be evident for some patients and other symptoms for other patients; however, the symptoms evident more than likely have been documented and can be compared with each other (Norrholm, …show more content…

The answer to that is stated by Stark, Parsons, Van Hartevelt, Charquero-Ballester, McManners, Ehlers, and Kringelbach (2015), the threat starts off in the amygdala where there are hypersensitive stimuli that go hand in hand with triggers that cause PTSD causing gradual stress on the brain in form of flashbacks and sleep difficulties (P. 1). Moreover, this constant threat has the patient on high alert since his or her brain is under the constant force of the stress caused by traumatic events. For example, Ruglass and Kendall-Tacket (2014) mentioned scenarios such as Jenna who had difficulty sleeping for most of her high school career after being raped at a drive in as well as a veteran named Sam who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Sam was challenged by disturbing thoughts and had nightmares as well throughout his normal life (P. 3). This research has concluded that only highly sensitive and traumatic events trigger the start of PTSD, so it affects much of the quality of living for the patient who has been diagnosed with the disorder. To conclude, it is evident that a PTSD patient does indeed go through vigorous challenges that in term influence much of a patient’s daily life since conflicts between the patient and his or her self arise to constantly put the patient in a state of grief and pain

Open Document