Related topics: brain , anxiety disorders
Posttraumatic stress disorder
hidePosttraumatic stress disorder (abbreviated PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events that threatened or caused great physical harm.
It is a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma. This stressor may involve someone's actual death, a threat to the patient's or someone else's life, serious physical injury, an unwanted sexual act, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity, overwhelming psychological defenses.
In some cases it can also be from profound psychological and emotional trauma, apart from any actual physical harm. Often, however, incidents involving both things are found to be the cause.
PTSD is a more chronic and less frequent consequence of trauma than the normal acute stress response.
PTSD has also been recognized in the past as railway spine, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, traumatic war neurosis, or post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Diagnostic symptoms include reexperience, such as flashbacks and nightmares; avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma; and increased arousal, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, and hypervigilance. Per definition, the symptoms last more than six months and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and relationships).
For more information about Posttraumatic stress disorder, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with post traumatic stress disorder
Non-invasive technique blocks a conditioned fear in humans
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Dec 09, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (3) |
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Scientists have for the first time selectively blocked a conditioned fear memory in humans with a behavioral manipulation. Participants remained free of the fear memory for at least a year. The research builds on emerging ...
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Is nicotinamide overload a trigger for type 2 diabetes?
Dec 22, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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Facing the increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes worldwide in the past few decades, one may ask what is wrong with humans. Geneticists tell us that the human genome has not changed markedly in such a short time. Therefore, ...
Growing evidence suggests progesterone should be considered a treatment option for traumatic brain injuries
Dec 22, 2009 |
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Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, recommend that progesterone (PROG), a naturally occurring hormone found in both males and females that can protect damaged cells in the central and peripheral nervous systems, ...
Naturally skinny people have their own challenges
Dec 15, 2009 |
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Nancy Brueheim wishes she could break 100 pounds. Without working at it, Brueheim, who is 71 and stands 5-foot-2, fluctuates between 95 and 98 pounds.
26 operations, 13 kidneys: hope to few with little
Dec 14, 2009 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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(AP) -- Twenty-six operations put healthy kidneys into 13 desperately ill people: Doctors in the nation's capital just performed a record-setting kidney swap, part of a pioneering effort to expand transplants ...
Newly identified enzymes help plants sense elevated CO2 and could lead to water-wise crops
Dec 13, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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Biologists have identified plant enzymes that may help to engineer plants that take advantage of elevated carbon dioxide to use water more efficiently. The finding could help to engineer crops that take advantage of rising ...
Soldiers get mass swine flu shots before holidays
Dec 11, 2009 |
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(AP) -- Thousands of Army recruits in training must line up at least once more before heading home for the holidays, this time for mass inoculations by the hundreds against swine flu.
Family's inherited condition links prion diseases, Alzheimer's
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Dec 09, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A laboratory connection between Alzheimer's disease and brain-wasting diseases such as the human form of mad cow disease has moved into the clinic for what is believed to be the first time, manifesting itself ...
Brain imaging shows kids' PTSD symptoms linked to poor hippocampus function
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Dec 08, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
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Psychological trauma leaves a trail of damage in a child's brain, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Their new study gives the first direct evidence that children ...
New technology helps scientists understand ancient fossils
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Dec 07, 2009 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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Some of the world's oldest human bones and other ancient relics are studied here using some of the world's newest technologies.
Antiepileptic drugs not linked to suicide among those with bipolar disorder
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Dec 07, 2009 |
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Despite government warnings about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and actions while taking antiepileptic drugs, these medications do not appear to be associated with increased risk of suicide attempts in individuals ...
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