Acute Stress Disorder:
Acute stress disorder is a response to exceptional physical or psychological stress like gone through an overwhelming traumatic event (e.g. accidents, battle and rape) in one’s life. The important thing is this type of disorder is that it happens within 4 weeks of the event and lasts not more than 2 days.
Acute stress disorder is a brief period of intrusive recollections occurring within 4 wk of witnessing or experiencing an overwhelming traumatic event. This stress can be classified under anxiety disorder as well.
Symptoms of acute stress disorder:
Normal symptom is disassociation from the surrounding environment and narrowing the attention span.
Treatment:
Many of them come out from the disorder as the time goes by however treatment of this type of disorder lies in understanding and empathy to the sufferer. Treatments through drugs are not advisable in this type of disorder.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD):
This disorder arises when a person have gone through an exceptional traumatic experience which has been threatening for life like terror attack, a very traumatic accident, sexual assault or something like being an hostage to someone.
People suffering through this disorder usually replay the traumatic event repeatedly in their mind continuously in their awareness as well as in their dream. As the effect of this disorder is long lasting, the effects are also very harmful to the person.
This type of disorder in common language is also known as PTSD.
Symptoms of PTSD:
“Flashbacks” that is repeated movie of traumatic event is the most common symptom. That usually increases on the anniv
ersaries of that traumatic event and result in hyper vigilance for that particular or related event.
Treatment:
One needs to have an urgent “Psychiatric consultation” with a qualified psychiatrist who should be an expert in exploring the memories of the traumatic event and its release. Drug therapy is also very effective to treat this type of disorder which reduces the nightmares and flashbacks.
As person who is going through PTSD is suffering with intense anxiety flashbacks, they should be given supportive empathy and sympathy. The psychiatrist should be able to teach techniques to face and control anxiety as well as they should encourage a positive attitude towards the traumatic event through they have gone and suffering.
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