PTSD

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that develops in a portion of people who experience or witness a traumatic event that caused or threatened serious harm or death. This can range from a natural disaster, the death of a family member, an accident, sexual assault, or war. Between the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan thirty percent of soldiers who return are diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Vietnam War was the first time that PTSD was acknowledged as a psychological and brain disorder. Post Traumatic stress disorder was previously known as “shell shock” and even before that as “battle fatigue”.

Every human has a survival instinct known as the “fight or flight response”. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for this and prepares the body for action by dilating the pupils and increasing the heart rate. In cases of Veterans with PTSD the sympathetic nervous system is damaged, because of the frequent use of the “flight or fight response”.

The three main components of the brain damaged from PTSD are the Amygdala, prefrontal Cortex, and left Hippocampus. Located in the Limbic System the Amygdala centralizes emotions, emotional behavior, motivation, and memories that our emotionally charged. The Amygdala is smaller in subjects with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but it is unclear weather or not it shrinks from a traumatic event or if a person is born with a smaller Amygdala, which would make them more susceptible to traumatic ordeals. The prefrontal cortex is involved in motivation and regulation of emotional behavior and mood. Some adverse effects from PTSD on the prefrontal cortex are a decrease in gray and white matter density, as well as a decrease in responsiveness to emotional ...

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...he victim, successful treatment of PTSD will likely reduce these adverse effects. The Washington Academy of Sciences estimates that the cost of PTSD is over 44 billion dollars a year, 23 billion in direct medical cost. The understanding of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has been brought along far enough to provide effective treatments.

If diagnosed early, the victim may cease any complications from this disease. Currently there is no single best treatment for this disorder, but some treatments such as cognitive-behavioral therapy appear to be very promising. “CBT includes a number of diverse, but related techniques such as cognitive restructuring, exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)” (Howard and Crandall). The way to carry yourself around someone with PTSD is the same with any disability acknowledge, accept, and accommodate.

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