PTSD Flashcards
Trauma
A negative event outside the range of usual human experience
Old and new classification of PTSD
Was with anxiety, not in new category of trauma and stressor related disorders.
Diagnostic criteria for PTSD trauma
Exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence in one or more ways:
1) Direct exposure
2) Witnessing the event
3) learning the traumatic event happened to a family member or friend
4) Experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the event.
Intrusion symptoms
Recurrent and intrusive distressing memories of an event, recurrent distressing dreams of the event, dissociative reactions (flashbacks), intense psychological distress to cues that resemble/symbolize the event, physiological reactivity on exposure to cues.
Avoidance
Avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, places, thoughts, etc.
Negative alterations in cognition and mood
Can’t recall important aspects of the trauma, negative beliefs about oneself, guilt, anhedonia, detachment
Alterations in arousal and reactivity
Irritability or outbursts of anger, reckless or self-destructive behavior, hypervigilance, sleep disturbance
PTSD includes
Trauma, intrusion symptoms, avoidance behavior, negative alterations in cognition/mood, and alterations in arousal/reactivity. All for greater than one month.
Acute Stress Disorder
Basically PTSD for less than 1 month
Does everybody who experiences trauma get PTSD?
No, you idiot!
How long does PTSD last
80% longer than 3 months, 50% lasts at least 2 years.
Predictor of worse outcomes for PTSD
Comorbid medical illnesses, childhood trauma, additional trauma, psych hx, female, alcohol abuse
PTSD pathophysiology
Predicted to be a failure to recover from a trauma.
Noradrenergic system in PTSD
Abnormal function, sustained hyperactivity of sympathetic nervous system. Increased HR and BP, increased excretion of NE, increased plasma NE.
Plasma NE in PTSD?
Increased
