Anxiety Disorders Flashcards
Fear
An immediate alarm reaction to a situation that is dangerous or life threatening
Yerkes-Dodson Law
Shows we benefit from small amounts of anxiety, best performance at a medium level of arousal
Panic
Sudden, overwhelming fright or terror in the absence of obvious threat or danger
Biological contributions to anxiety
Temperamental differences
Genetic
GABA
Limbic system
Psychological contributors
How we view our level of control
Triggers
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Excessive anxiety occurring more days than not, difficulty controlling worry, restlessness, fatigue, irritability, sleep disturbance
Statistics for GAD
4% meet criteria in a given year
5.7% in their lifetime
Females two thirds
Treatment options for GAD
Benzodiazepines for short use, SSRIs, CBT
Panic attack
Sudden intense fear associated with physical symptoms like sweating, palpitations, feelings of choking, nausea, chills, etc.
Last about 10 minutes
Not panic disorder
Agoraphobia
Fear of being alone in and avoiding certain places or situations where escape would be difficult in the event of a panic attack
Panic disorder may be diagnosed with or without such
Panic disorder
Recurrent unexpected panic attacks and persistent worry about future attacks
May include agoraphobia
Panic disorder statistics
2.8% of pop within a year
4.7% within their lifetime
75% are women
One third in treatment
Nocturnal panic
Occur during the deepest stages of sleep, multiple times a night, awake suddenly and think they are dying or having a heart attack, sometimes expedience isolated sleep paralysis
60% will experience
Panic disorder causes
Neurobiologically over reactive, learned alarms, inherited tendency to be stressed
Treatment for panic disorder
SSRIs, exposure based psychotherapy, combination of both is NOT better
Specific phobia
Marked or persistent fear due to presence of or anticipation or a specific object or situation for at least 6 months
Exposure produces distress, situations avoided, recognition that fear is unfounded
Vasovagal response
Heritable tendency to faint
Often stimulated in blood-injection-injury phobia
Phobia stats
8.7% in a given year
12.5% in a lifetime
Female to male 2:1
Few receive treatment
Phobia causes
Direct traumatic experience
False alarms
Anxiety about the experience happening again
Specific phobia treatment
Exposure therapy that is carefully planned and communicated
Social phobia (social anxiety disorder)
Marked and persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or scrutiny by others
Such experiences are avoided and cause excessive anxiety/fear
Social phobia stats
7% pop in a given year
12% lifetime
Onset around 13
Even rates between men and women
Causes of social phobia
Hypervigilance to negative facial expressions, heritability (3x), vulnerability and conditioning
Treatment for social phobia
Group therapy, cognitive therapy, medications (MAOs and SSRIs)0
Obsessions
Recurrent intrusive thoughts or impulses
Focus types: symmetry, forbidden thoughts/actions, cleaning
Compulsions
Repetitive, ritualistic, time consuming behaviors or mental acts that a person is drive to perform in response to an obsession
Common: counting, washing, arranging
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Presence of obsessions and/or compulsions, recognition of unreasonableness, cause distress or interfere with functioning, consumes more than an hour per day of time
OCD stats
1% in a given year
1-3% in lifetime
13% may experience symptoms without meeting criteria
Male:female in children, reverses in adults
Causes of OCD
Conditioning (compulsions relieve anxiety response, engage again) Biological abnormalities (low serotonin, GABA, glutamate, dopamine, deficits in orbitofrontal cortex, caudate nuclei over active)
Treatment for OCD
SSRIs show modest results
Exposure and response prevention
Cingulotomy (neurosurgery that involves surgically producing a lesion on the brain to stop obsessive thoughts)
Hoarding disorder
Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value, results in the accumulation of possessions that compromises health and intended use
Hoarding disorder stats
Estimated around 2-6%
Three times as prevalent in older adults
Onset in early life, severity increases with age
Hair-pulling disorder (trichotillomania)
Recurrent pulling out of ones hair, results in hair loss
Repeated attempts to stop
Causes distress
Trichotillomania stats
1-2% in a given year
Female:male 10:1, equal in children
Onset at puberty
Chronic waxing and waning
Excoriation (skin picking disorder)
Recurrent skin picking resulting in lesions, repeated attempts to stop, clinical distress
Excoriation stats
Lifetime in adults 1.4%
75% female
Body dystrophic disorder
Preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not apparent to others, performs repetitive behaviors in response, clinical distress
BDD stats
2.5% equal in men and women
10% will attempt suicide
Similar mechanism to OCD
BDD treatments
SSRIs, cognitive therapy, exposure and response prevention
