Post-traumatic stress disorder

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is long-term psychological trauma following a life-threatening incident, the degree of which seems to be independent of the extent of physical injury. It can be a natural disasters, disastrous events or accidents, bombing, torture or death camps. Whilst the later distress is triggered by the incident, it may be delayed for months or years. It produces a wide range of symptoms in men and women who have experienced a traumatic event that provoked intense fear, helplessness or horror. The events are sometimes re-experienced later through intrusive memories, nightmares, hallucinations or flashbacks, usually triggered by anything that symbolizes or resembles the trauma. Troubled sleep, irritability, anger, poor concentration, hypervigilance and exaggerated responses are often symptoms. Individuals may feel depression, detachment or estrangement, guilt, intense anxiety and panic and other negative emotions. The person may also tries to avoid thoughts or feelings about the trauma and may even lose the ability to recall some important aspects of it.

The early pattern of distress that points to long-term problems is poorly known. This means PTSD is often under-diagnosed or missed in a medical or surgical outpatient setting, or crisis relief station. Probable early signals of PTSD are depression; recurring memories or flashbacks of the event; patterns of agitation and anxiety, or disordered arousal, such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, panic attacks, irritability or outbursts of anger or hypervigilance; and the extent of disassociation (a psychological method of coping) during the accident. Also common is that soon after the traumatic event the person starts suffering from "emotional anaesthesia" - decreased ability to have affectionate feelings towards others.