...Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders 1 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders: Defining, Diagnosing, Correlation with Insomnia and Nightmares as well as The Treatment and Recovery Processes in War Veteran’s Tammy L. Egan Fulton-Montgomery Community College Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders 2 Abstract Post-traumatic stress disorder or most commonly known as PTSD, is a common problem for veterans returning from war all over the world. It can often be misdiagnosed as a traumatic brain injury or overlooked altogether because of the similarities in their symptoms. This paper will define what post-traumatic stress is as according to the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders, its correlation with insomnia and nightmares, traumatic brain injuries and rare heart conditions, and it summarizes various treatment options including virtual reality, the Recover process, cognitive processing therapy, clinical programs, the use of the drug propranolol, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Lastly, it will review problems with those treatments, involving flaws in the research studies, ethical issues and gender issues. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders 3 Defining, Diagnosing, Correlation with Insomnia and Nightmares as well as The Treatment and Recovery Processes in War Veteran’s Wars have been fought for centuries, and the soldiers fighting these wars often come home scarred, either physically, mentally, or both. Soldiers who exhibit...
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...The term post- traumatic stress disorder come around the 1970’s, so the term shell shock was created to express the psychological or physical injuries for the soldier and veterans. Most people believed post-traumatic stress disorder was only temporary; however, post-traumatic stress disorder does not just disappear overnight, and in most cases, shell shock can be permeant, especially in Septimus’ case. Septimus; pain and suffering leaded him to commit suicide, so he could escape his horror. The critic Bruce Dohrenwend exposed the psychological risks of the people, who was in the war. Some of the soldiers got post-traumatic stress disorder right after war, but studies show post-traumatic stress disorder can develop elven or twelve years after...
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...Substance Abuse to cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Military Veterans face many life changing stressors while away on active duty as well as when they return home. To cope with the stress, drugs and alcohol become a way to self-medicate and cover the unseen pain. Substance abuse, because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is a coping mechanism for some of the nation’s Veterans, but with proper medical attention, treatment is possible. PTSD can occur after a traumatic event, in which there are four types of symptoms: reliving the event or flashbacks, avoiding situations that may trigger memories, and feeling numb or detached from life (“United States Department of Veteran Affairs”, 2013). Many classifications of drugs are abused to help cope with the different symptoms of PTSD. Unfortunately, substance abuse has negative consequences and in return, increases the stressors experienced once home. Treatment and recovery options are available to make the coping a positive experience. There are several risks associated with serving this country, such as leaving home at a young age, training for combat, seeing explosions, witnessing innocent by standards injured and killed, and attacks by the enemy. Returning home is also stressful for many Veterans; mentally and physically life is different, personalities have changed, and the perspective on beliefs are not as they once had been. Some find themselves easily angered, irritated, and no longer finding joy in...
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...What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Who is prone to PTSD? And how can one deal with this very unpleasant felling? These are the topics I will be educating you the reader on. I will be discussing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the affects it has on service members, and how to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder And proven methods on how to cope. Post traumatic Stress Disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs after a traumatic event. Such as; a close encounter with death a violent encounter in which the person was the victim or a women involved in a sexual assault. Mostly I will be hitting on P.T.S.D. With in our armed services. 1.7 million Veterans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at least a third of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D., according to the National Center for P.T.S.D. Given that combat vets sent to the front lines of Afghanistan and Iraq see fallen comrades, experience combat, and or survive horrific events, the likelihood of a vet being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder is high. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, someone with P.T.S.D. Is at least twice as likely to commit suicide or to sir-come to alcohol abuse. Service members are also likely to develop some type of mood disorder. Veterans are also at a high risk for domestic violence. Their is defiantly a stigma is the services associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Most vets are scared to come forward with their issues...
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...Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) can have major and long lasting effects on the cognition of the people who suffer from them. Cognition is the mental processes involved in perception, attention, memory, language, problem solving, reasoning, and decision making (Goldstein, 2015). Previous research on individuals who had TBI is wide and varied. There is always evolving and new information being produced in this area of research. The US Military has also taken an interest in this area, as the instances of service members suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) correlated with a previous TBI is high (Summerall, 2007). Summerall states that another factor is that these injuries can occur in chaotic circumstances, such as combat, and may...
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...Through the modern age, traumatic events continue to occur with detrimental impacts, from natural disasters to car accidents. A large percentage of those affected by these events experience paranoia and anxiety, which encroach their daily lives and are given the umbrella diagnosis Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There are many traumatic events that can contribute to PTSD, and finding a successful treatment can pose questions as to what treatment works for most variables. There are key symptoms, or rather clusters that people with PTSD can suffer from. If a person was in a traumatic car accident and is suffering from PTSD symptoms, they may be reliving the events by feeling the same intense fear they had when they experienced the crash....
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...Com/156 | Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder | Persuasive Essay | Individuals suffering from post-dramatic stress disorder (PTSD) could find a great deal of relief in the facilities and support groups available throughout the country. Post-traumatic stress disorder has been an issue haunting Americans for generations; the lack of a viable cure also makes its common existence extremely dangerous. It’s understandable that victims and their family members would do anything to help this terrible mental disorder, and with modern medicine and psychiatric evaluation techniques; a sigh of relief can be taken. For years this condition has been seen a form of mild psychosis rather than a treatable medical condition, the instability involved in the victims of this illness isn’t easily ignored. The world around us is filled with terror and angst, so much that often the human mind tends to bend and break rather than adapt to these wild events. The effects of traumatic events vary from person to person and it isn’t without trail that studies begin to unravel what causes PTSD, and from that moment civilization has been on an evolutionary path to break down and understand what can be done to help. The most common association with PTSD is the mental state of soldiers returning from war, these individuals experience violent and graphic scenarios and often fall victim to instability in the mind. Events like going to prison and domestic abuse are also common factors in the acquisition of PTSD...
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...Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a complex mental health disorder with poor treatment outcome. While the majority of the population will be exposed to some form of trauma throughout their lifetime only a fraction will actually go on to develop the disorder (Kessler et. Al, 1995). This has lead many researchers to devote their time to the analysis of pre-trauma factors such as individual characteristics (e.g intelligence) as a means of identifying personal vulnerability for the development of PTSD. However, with the exception of female gender, pre-trauma variables are for the most part associated with an individual's risk of exposure and have been shown to have substantially less predictive power regarding who's actually at risk for developing PTSD following trauma (Bromet 1998). Therefore, peri-traumatic factors such as the nature of the trauma and dissociative symptoms currently remain the most successful predictors in relation to the onset and duration of PTSD at our disposal (Ozer et al. 2003). Continued research of trauma severity and dissociative symptoms as well as further investigation into how these two factors interact to predict PTSD is necessary to further our understanding of the disorder and improve treatment methods. It has been known for some time that the severity of a traumatic event is a robust predictor for PTSD (Birmes et. Al, 2003). While there is no universal measure of trauma severity, factors like perceived life threat, duration of the event...
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...Trauma of Shin Dong-hyuk Do you know about North Korean’s political prison camps? Many people might do not know what there are. They have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. But Shin Dong-hyuk did. He was destined to a life of hard labor and an early death. Thinking of love and family were no meaning. He just saw his mother as a competitor for food. He is taught to trust no one, to snitch on everyone and to be loyal only to the guards. When he was 23, Shin managed to evade the guards and crawl through an electrified fence over the dead body of his friend to escape. He found his way to China, then to South Korea and eventually to the U.S. He is the only prisoner born and raised in one of North Korea's prison camps who is known to have escaped. Reporter Blaine Harden has written an account of Shin's journey called Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. Not surprisingly, Shin's PTSD and learned way of life make it very difficult for him to open up and share the brutal details of his life. Not just because he had bad things done to him, but because he believes he did some very bad things himself. Although Shin has physical freedom, he cannot achieve psychological freedom evidenced by his distrust of others, others’ distrust of him, his lacks of loving role models, his shame of surviving Camp 14,...
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...“Living With The Past” by Art Vandalay June 15, 2013 In all honesty I did not hear the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) until some time after I re-deployed from Iraq in mid August 2003. Surely the term had been around long before them, but it wasn’t commonly used acronym in the military. I didn’t have nearly the frequent use that is has in today’s Army. Nowadays, everything a Soldier does is associated with PTSD even if the Soldier has not been diagnosed with it; it has become such a ill-used word that from what I can see everyone is try to jump on the band wagon. So if Soldier is late for my formation, the first thing he says is, “I must have PTSD or something, I need to get check out”, well the whole time I am thinking the Soldier just didn’t want to get up this morning, he doesn’t have PTSD. So I can understand how the screening for PTSD may be a bit diluted as everyone [thinks] they have it, even those who are new recruits and have never even been to combat. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat (National Institute of Mental Health, 2011). Although not all individuals who have been traumatized develop PTSD, there can be significant physical consequences of being traumatized...
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...Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Vietnam War Veterans COMM/156 4/14/2013 Professor Marsha Parker PTSD is an anxiety disorder classified as a mental illness caused by exposure to terrifying or life threatening events. During the time of war, people get exposed to devastating experiences such as sexual abuse, witnessing murder of family members or familiar people, and other horrors of war. As a result, the victims suffer from mental disorders since the horrible experiences are forever ingrained in their mind. Bearing in mind that bad memories are rarely erased, the experiences can be compared to a horror movie that is often played in the mind and constantly frightens the victim to death. On one hand the victim celebrates survival but on the other hand the experiences haunt one through night mares or flashbacks. The victim remains constantly on edge and is easily startled. Some common feelings include intense guilt and some time numbness- all signs of posttraumatic stress disorder (TMP, 2012). A research finding by Bruce Dohrenwend and colleagues from New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia’s Letter Carrier School of Public Health, shows that traumatic experiences during war predicted the onset of PTSD in Vietnam veterans (Mikulak, 2013). We will examine the PTSD in Vietnam War veterans. Human existence has been always exposed to traumatic incidences of various kinds. For instance, attacks by lions or even the twentieth century terrorist attacks to...
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...Analyze combat and operational stress reactions (COSRs) Combat Stress Controlling combat stress is often the deciding factor between victory and defeat in all forms of human conflict. Stressors are a fact of combat, and you and your Soldiers will face them. Controlled combat stress can call forth stress reactions of loyalty, selflessness, and heroism. Conversely, uncontrolled combat stress causes erratic or harmful behavior that disrupts or interferes with the accomplishment of a unit’s mission. Any uncontrolled combat stress can impair mission performance and may bring disgrace, disaster, and defeat. The art of war aims to impose so much stress on enemy soldiers that they lose their will to fight. Both sides try to do this and at times accept severe stress themselves in order to inflict greater stress on the enemy. To win, you must control combat stress. The word “control” is better than the word “manage” to emphasize the active steps that leaders, supporting personnel, and individual Soldiers must take to keep stress within an acceptable range. This does not mean that control and management are mutually exclusive terms. Management is, by definition, the exercise of control. Within common usage, however, and especially within Army usage, management has the connotation of being a somewhat detached, number–driven, higher echelon process rather than a direct, inspirational, leadership process. Stress is the body’s and mind’s process for dealing with uncertain change...
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...------------------------------------------------- Stress and Coping This paper defines the theory of stress and coping and applies it to multiple scenarios. Also included are ways the process can be expanded to include those that cannot cope. ------------------------------------------------- Stress and Coping This paper defines the theory of stress and coping and applies it to multiple scenarios. Also included are ways the process can be expanded to include those that cannot cope. Psy. 320 Psy. 320 Stress and Coping The theory chosen for this paper was the stress and coping theory created by Lazarus. Lazarus stated that stress is directly linked to coping. An explanation of the stress and coping theory will be given followed by two real life scenarios. These scenarios will be analyzed for both how they are applicable to this theory and how they are not. These scenarios will be further explored to assess the need to develop and create new theoretical models of motivation in today’s changing work environment, and what the ramification may be for failing to do so. The theory behind stress and coping is one that can be explained better with a series of chained events used to illustrate the process of coping. First there is an influencing factor. This can be personal or situational. This is followed by a primary appraisal. The primary appraisal is how a person deems the situation harmful or harmless. If a person deems the situation as harmless...
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...can't quite put my finger on makes my heart race and puts me back in combat mode. These are just some of the problems soldiers face when they return from war. It is something called PTSD ( Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In this paper I will discuss the definition of PTSD, soldiers committing crimes, and suicides after deployment. Also, what kinds of treatments that are out there for soldiers. Finally, we will discuss the struggles of a soldier returning home. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition resulting from exposure to direct or indirect threat of death, serious injury, or a physical threat. Events that can cause PTSD are called "stressors” and may include natural disasters, accidents or deliberate man-made events/disasters, including war. Symptoms of PTSD can include recurrent thoughts of a traumatic event, reduced involvement in work or outside interests, emotional numbing, hyper-alertness, anxiety and irritability. The disorder can be more severe and longer lasting when the stress is human initiated action (example: war, rape, terrorism) (Veterans Affairs.gov 2010). Crime is always high next to a active duty post. It is plain math. You have your normal amount of civilians, and you add the total amount of soldiers to that. The volume of military-related crime off-post is beginning to tax civilian law enforcement authorities. Felony El Paso County jail bookings for service members have...
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...severe depression may choose to make arrangements if they are considering suicide. These arrangements can include care for their family and pets in their absence. 2. Research a disorder associated with stress or mental health. - PTSD A military deployment can take a toll on any given person. The toll can be seen in many different forms such as emotional and mental disorders. These types of disorders can destroy an individual from the inside, out. Now multiply those symptoms by the number of deployments some soldiers have endured and the chance for mental disorders like post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) increase drastically. There have been many studies done to determine the correlation between the number of deployments and PTSD. One particular study was conducted with the help of the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery under the Wounded, III, and Injured/Psychological Health/Traumatic Brain Injury Program to determine if the amount of dwell time a soldier has between deployments decreases PTSD. It has been shown by this study and several others that...
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