Mental Health - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Core diagnostic criteria for PTSD

A life threatening event outside normal human experience
Re-experience of the trauma
Intrusive memories
Dreams/nightmares
Flashbacks (sense of reliving the event)
Distress at exposure to events resembling the trauma
Avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma
Evidence of increased arousal:
- Sleep disturbance
- Irritability
- Hypervigilance
- Exaggerated startle response

Lifelong disabling disorder with chronic relapsing course
May present with dysfunctional social behaviour:
- breakdown of stable relationships
Other psychiatric disorders, depression, alcohol abuse complicate
No single treatment effective
Families become second victims & must be included in treatment
Partial PTSD seen after accidents:
- When it does follow civilian accidents more likely if concomitant brain damage or premorbid personality disorders or anxiety / depression