Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first recognized in the Vietnam War era during the mid to late 1900’s. With great difficulty, many returning veterans tried to adjust to their previous home life but were unable to because of the impacts of combat exposure during the war. The many trauma victims of the war were the main reason why PTSD became a formal diagnosis in 1980 (Lavin). Post-traumatic stress disorder can be defined as the development of characteristic symptoms that last for more than one month, along with difficulty functioning after exposure to a life threatening experience (Lise M. Stevens, Alison E. Burke and Robert M. Golub). An estimated 7% to 8% of people in the United States will develop PTSD at some point in their lifetimes, while combat veterans and victims of sexual assault have an increased risk of 10% to 30% (Lavin). According to the research, this is a fairly common disorder amongst American citizens. There are numerous amounts of symptoms and traumatic triggers that must be clinically assessed in order to receive the proper treatment.

Patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder develop symptoms in three categories: re-experiencing the trauma, avoiding stimuli associated with the trauma, and increased autonomic arousal (Roy R. Reeves). Re-experienced may occur though recollections and dreams, flashbacks, and psychological or physiological stress reactions associated with the trauma. Symptoms of avoidance include efforts to avoid thoughts or activities related to the trauma, reduced capacity to remember events related to the trauma, feelings of detachment, and a sense of a foreshortened future. Symptoms of increased arousal include exaggerated reactions to fear, hyper-vigilance, insomnia, irritability, and outbursts of anger. To be diagnosed with PTSD, a patient must display at least one symptom of re-experiencing, three symptoms of avoidance, and two symptoms of increased arousal, while persisting for more than 1 month (Roy R. Reeves) 

Although patients may believe that their Post-Traumatic Stress signs and symptoms come out of nowhere, they rarely occur spontaneously. Instead, they are often triggered by internal and external factors (Lavin). Some of these triggers include: anger and rage reactions, impulsive behavior, chronic anxiety and stress, diaphoresis during flashbacks, irritability, and feelings of depersonalization. Once these PTSD signs are triggered, it I essential to use stress coping mechanisms and strategies to reduce uncovered stress.

           There are many people that are at risk for the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder such as, people with military combat experience, civilians who have been harmed by war, victims of rape, sexual abuse, or physically abuse. People who have been involved in or who have witnessed a life-threatening event, and people who have been involved in a natural disaster, such as a tornado or an earthquake (Lise M. Stevens, Alison E. Burke and Robert M. Golub).

          There are many ways to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but we are going to focus on cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, group therapy, and knowledge about the disorder. Cognitive behavioral therapy with a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, or other professional can help adjust emotions, thoughts, and behaviors associated with PTSD and can assist in managing panic, anger, and anxiety. Next, there are certain medications that can reduce symptoms such as anxiety, impulsivity, depression, and insomnia and decrease urges to use alcohol and other drugs. In addition, group therapy can help patients learn to communicate their feelings about the trauma and create a support system. Finally, becoming informed about PTSD and sharing information with family and friends can create understanding and support during recovery (Lise M. Stevens, Alison E. Burke and Robert M. Golub).

      Although mentioned above, the importance of education is key and is not stressed enough. The staff members or medical aids should insist on educating their patients about their current disorder, triggers, and coping mechanisms. Shedding light on their conditions and conversing with others for moral support can help reduce or even prevent some stressors from increasing. Also, learning more about the illness could help reduce the sense of powerlessness that many patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder experience (Lavin). Aside from teaching the patients, it is also important to encourage patients to actively participate and be fully committed to their treatment process. Encouraging patients increases their positive life style practices while minimizing the negative ones (Lavin). In turn, all of these coping strategies can help the patient feel more in control of their disorder and possibly even beat it!

-Kyle Lachowicz

Works Cited

Lavin, Joanne EdD, MEd, RN. "Surviving posttraumatic stress disorder." Nursing Management (Springhouse) 43 (2012): 28-33.

Lise M. Stevens, MA, MA Alison E. Burke and MD Robert M. Golub. "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ." JAMA 308.7 (2012): 1-2.

Roy R. Reeves, DO, PhD. "Diagnosis and Management of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Returning Veterans." JAOA Clinical Practice 107 (2007): 181-189.

Stress and The Affects of Male vs Female

Ever wonder if stress affects a Female differently that it affects a Male human? We see in our everyday lives people going through stress, both male and female. We can probably conclude that sometimes the mood of the person can me different because they are male or female. Maybe the two different sex do handle stress differently and is affected differently, or maybe the affects and similar but the reaction is different. Maybe it all depends on the person. 

Looking from the outside I could conclude some differences between the two different sexes. One would be that women, when faced with a large amount of stress, seem to be more emotional where men are not. It was stated in “Men, women and stress”, “the stress levels felt by men and women in pharmacy are roughly the same, but they seem to deal with the pressures differently” (Men). This study says that the way we feel stress as a male or female is fairly similar but the way we deal with the pressures can also be similar. Then article then followed up with a statistic stating that men, when dealing with stress, are more likely to turn towards drinking alcohol causing them to gain weight. As for a female, they are more likely to gain weight by turning to food (Men). Women are also likely to be more supportive when going through stress and men are not. 

Most scientist use male or female mice to run test on and relate them to humans. The reason behind this is because mice are animals that are most similar to humans with reactions and behavior. In the article “Metabolic Consequences and Vulnerability to Diet-Induced Obesity in Male Mice under Chronic Social Stress” scientist use mice to run experiments on to examine the reaction of obesity in male mice when they produce stress on the mice. The article then goes on to say how the male mouse when under stress seemed to produce a weight gain over time. The mice seemed to have a larger appetite and would eat more times throughout the day then normal (Metabolic). They then continued to describe the consumption of food by the mice. Stating, “Food intake, the hedonic response to palatable food as well as the locomotor activity and the sympathetic activation within the adipose fat pads all represent causal factors explaining the different metabolic alterations observed” (Metabolic). The scientist then continued to test the mice with over days and noticed aggressive behavior. As the male mice began to stress more they then became more aggressive than what the scientist have noticed before.The scientist then continued by stating “In our experimental setup, body weight changes were associated with hyperphagia in Sub mice” (Metabolic). 

Stress can affect a female in different ways. “A woman’s hormone levels fluctuate during puberty, pregnancy, menopause and her monthly menstrual cycle. These hormonal changes leave women especially vulnerable to stress and its symptoms. Stress has been known to cause both heavy menstrual bleeding and lack of bleeding, endometriosis and fertility problems in women.” (LaMeaux). I believe that because the hormone levels in a female fluctuate that this is the reason why we see a different reaction out of a female human rather than a male human. Stress seems to affect the woman more than man. Stress seems to play a much tougher role in a females life. The article states “Heart disease is the number-one killer of American women and the most prevalent consequence of stress. Stress causes high blood pressure, which compels the heart to work double time, increasing the risk of strokes, heart attacks, kidney failure and diabetes.” (LaMeaux). This could be the reason why we see females being more emotional when dealing with stress. 

Males and females have similar stress levels when the occurrence of the same stressor is brought upon them. The way that they handle them is different and the way in effects the body is differently. The female will take upon stress and become emotional while some health issues may occur. All while the male would go through a stressful situation and possibly have anger issue, become a more aggressive person, and possibly become obese. 

-Chris Carter

Resources

LaMeaux, E.C. "How Stress Affects Women's Health." Healthy Green Living, Fitness & Sustainability. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.

Men, women and stress. (2010). Chemist & Druggist, , 5. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/324590137?accountid=12924It

"Metabolic Consequences and Vulnerability to Diet-Induced Obesity in Male Mice under Chronic Social Stress." Bartolomucci, Alessandro, Aderville Cabassi, Paolo Govoni, Graziano Ceresini, Cheryl Cero, Daniela Berra, Harold Dadomo, Paolo Franceschini, Giacomo Dell'Omo, Stefano Parmigiani, and Paola Palanza. National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 30 Jan. 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

Strain In Stress

           Stress in aspects of ones life such as work and family can put strain on the body and mind in many ways. Many studies have been done, looking at the ways that different stressors affect the body in a variety of ways. Each study focuses on different types of stress, either acute or chronic. Also each study uses a different scale to measure stress. Because of this there are a lot of different results, which cause a lot of discrepancies when trying to discuss the results and come up with one solid hypothesis on the effects of stress and the strain it can cause.

            The study of how stress can cause strain on a person’s health focuses mainly on job related stressors, whether long or short term. By looking at different studies that have been conducted one can compile enough information to see how severe the effects of stress can be. One should also compare how the studies differ in how they measure stress, because different scales can be used. Stressors at home and in the work place can cause physical and psychological strain that can be short or long term and needs to be brought to attention and studied in a more accurate and consistent way.

The study of the strain that stress can put on the body and mind is inconsistent and varies enough to cause discrepancies among those who research it. Peter Y. Chen and Paul E. Spector (1991) examine two different studies conducted on work related stress and discuss how the difference in the way they set up their experiments affected the results that they were getting. In their journal article “Negative Affectivity as the Underlying Cause of Correlations Between Stressors and Strains” they look the experiments done by a variety of psychologists and other professionals that differ in the scales they used to measure stress and the type of stress they tested for.

One possible reason for discrepancy between Brief et al.'s (1988) results and Jex and Specter's (in press) was the use of different measures of NA. Brief et al. (1988) used the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS; Taylor, 1953), whereas Jex and Spector (in press) used the Trait Anxiety scale (TAS) from Spielberger's (1979) State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI). Watson and Clark (1984) identified both scales as alternative measures of NA (p. 399).

After looking at the different scales that have been used, Paul and Spector (1991) found that a lot of what was on the scales over lapped which could mean that the scales used was not what caused the differences in the results, “We closely examined the instruments used in these two studies and noticed that there was considerable item overlap between the TMAS and the other scales used by Brief et al. (1988)” (Chen, 1991, p. 399). What most likely was the main difference was whether chronic or acute stressors were being tested. “There were two reasons why chronic job stressors were included in this study. First, chronic job stressors have been the major target of study in the job-stress literature (Beehr & Franz, 1987; Brief et al., 1988; Eden, 1982; Keenan & Newton, 1984). Second, the effects of chronic stressors tend to be long term (Barling, Bluen, & Fain, 1987), whereas the effects of acute stressors are more transitory (Loo, 1986)” (Chen, 1991, p. 399).

            Although the studies are not consistent with each other the results that come out of them are helpful. A study reported by Gann (2012) on ABC News looked at how a stressful job was putting strain on women’s hearts. The study focused on women in the health field in particular, “Albert and her colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston studied more than 22,000 women in the health care field – nurses, doctors and other professionals who were part of the decade-long Women's Health Study” (Gann, 2012). The study found that many women who said that their jobs were stressful were more likely to have strain put on their hearts, causing heart disease, “women who said their jobs were highly demanding and stressful were 38 percent more likely to have a heart problem” (Gann, 2012). Dov Eden, a professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel conducted research on acute stressors in the work place the relief caused by vacation. Eden (1990) is one the few to study acute stressors because most study is focused on chronic stress. “Investigation of episodic acute stress caused by critical job events (CJEs) that place excessive, transient demands on individuals has been rare (Adams, 1978; Caplan & Jones, 1975; Eden, 1982; Parkes, 1982)” (Eden, 1990, p. 175). In the study, Eden (1990) looked at the stress of critical job events (CTE), general work stress, and vacation time. “Both CJEs aroused levels of subjective stress that were higher than the chronic level measured during routine work, and the vacation provided enough of a respite from demands to evoke still lower reports of stress” (Eden, 1990, p. 189). Another point that Eden (1990) makes is that while stress decreased during vacation, chronic strain remained. “The level of strain measured during both routine work and vacation, in the absence of acutely stressful events, may be the baseline, or chronic level of “background strain” experienced until some critical episode, whether work- or non-work related, produces sufficient stress to increase strain” (Eden, 1990, p.191).

            By looking at different studies done by different professionals one can see there can be strain put on the body because of stress. It is also clear from Eden (1990) that stress can cause chronic strain that affects a person even when they take a vacation. Chen (1991) examined the different studies done on stress causing strain and one can see the that the studies done are not consistent and that results vary greatly. Over all one can conclude that stress does put some amount of strain on a person and more research should be done to better understand it.

-Chris Carter

References

Chen, P. Y., & Spector, P. E. (1991). Negative affectivity as the underlying cause of correlations between stressors and strains. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(3), 398-407. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.76.3.398

Eden, D. (1990). Acute and chronic job stress, strain, and vacation relief. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 45(2). Retrieved April 15, 2013.

Gann, C. (2012, July 18). Stressful Jobs Put Strain on Women’s Hearts, Study Says. ABC News. Retrieved April 15, 2013.

Panic

Everyone can most likely relate to a situation where you do not know what to do when something is going wrong. Since being a college student, this would be an example that applies. An exam for a class is coming up, so the process to begin studying starts up and you are feeling confident with the material that is being reviewed. The exam day finally comes and the questions are getting answered pretty quickly, and then this happens. A question comes up that you can recall from the all of the hard work and studying that was completed, but the only problem is you do not remember the answer. Some may start to get restless and others may feel the heart racing and immediate stress coming in. By having this feeling it may affect some answers to the other questions on the exam because of the stress making its way in. Does this sound familiar? Well, the scenario here that was mapped out portrays an example of panicking.

What is panic? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, panic is a sudden overpowering fright (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Branching off of just panicking, panics can lead to more frightful events that can change someone’s life. Being in a panic feels almost like an “out of body” experience that people try to avoid, but sometimes they just happen and there is really not much someone can do about it. What is so interesting about all of this is that it can all start from stress, and there is more to stress than most people know about. Panics may lead to panic disorders and panic attacks.

Now that you know a basic background of panicking, here is one of many problems that are caused from panic. A “Panic disorder is characterized by un-expected and repeated episodes of intense fear accompanied by physical symptoms that may include chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness or abdominal distress” (National Institutes of Health, 1999). Some may say this sounds like the symptoms of having a heart attack, but the both go hand in hand with each other and can lead to a lot of other bad news to come. Lately, Panic Disorder has been paramount with research and controversy as well. “Though biological conceptualizations have been predominant, psychological theorists have recently advanced conditioning, personality, and cognitive hypotheses to explain the etiology of panic disorder” (McNally, 1990). “Many people with panic disorder develop intense anxiety between episodes. It is not unusual for a person with panic disorder to develop phobias about places or situations where panic attacks have occurred, such as in supermarkets or other everyday situations. As the frequency of panic attacks increases, the person often begins to avoid situations where they fear another attack may occur or where help would not be immediately available. This avoidance may eventually develop into agoraphobia, an inability to go beyond known and safe surroundings because of intense fear and anxiety” (National Institutes of Health, 1999).

Another problem from panicking is panic attacks. “A panic attack can only be described as a comprehensive emotional nightmare. Some people with panic feel like they are in an escalating cycle of catastrophe and doom and that something bad is going to happen to them in a certain particular moment” (Richards, 2013). As we know, stress can cause panic, but sometimes panic attacks can even happen out of nowhere. According to Dr. Thomas A. Richards, there are people that do not even approach their doctors once they have had an attack. Personally, I do not know why someone would not want to take care of themselves if an event like this happened in someone’s life. On the bright side, there are treatments now for panic attacks and disorders. After a panic attack has taken its toll, there is a mental and physical pain that takes place which leads to not feeling like help is anywhere in site, or depression.

Recall the earlier example about the exam with a basic example of panicking. Yes, we never want to think about having a feeling like that, but it happens to everyone. Seeing major differences between that example and the disorders and attacks that occur with people hopefully can give some awareness about panics. They are not to be played with and should be taken seriously because of the affects that it has 

-Anthony Capaldi

                                           Sources

(1999). In Facts About Panic Disorder. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://www.healingwell.com/library/anxiety/info5.asp

(2013). In Panic. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/distress

McNally, R. J. (1990). Psychological approaches to panic disorder: a review.Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 403.

Richards, T. A. (2013). In Basic Facts About Panic Attacks. Retrieved April 11, 2013, from http://www.anxietynetwork.com/content/basic-facts-panic-attacks