Mental Health Section 3 – 1 What Really Is Ptsd

You wake up looking forward to something, right? Between 10 and 30 service percent members develop PTSD within a year of combat, as pointed out by current estimates. Generalized anxiety disorder, and substance abuse, the number increases to between 16 and 49 percent, when one considers a range of mental health problems including depression. Time period after combat when the questionnaire or assessment is administered; and response bias among service members who should be reluctant to acknowledge symptoms due to factors similar to stigma or fear of impact on their career, The estimates of probable PTSD are affected by quite a lot of factors including the sensitivity and specificity of the screening instruments used in the study. So precise prevalence of PTSD among service members who have returned from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan can’t be determined at this time. While others may experience a delay of six months to many years, others may have symptoms immediately upon return from combat, or when they leave the military troops.

Reports from a survey of deployed army revealed that a substantial number of military personnel were experiencing emotional problems during their service in Iraq.

So that’s referred to as a combat stress reaction.

Some will feel the effects of the trauma while they are still deployed. 15 those percent surveyed screened positive for acute stress symptoms and 18 percent screened positive on a combined measure of acute stress, depression, or anxiety. She says she felt scared, alone and terrified she’d never be let out, when ’26 year old’ Jenny was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Media exposure to war zone events; sights, sounds, or smells that are suggestive of the warzone; certain melodies or lyrics; experiences involving significant losses; or conflicts with authority, These symptoms tend to be heightened by events that elicit memories of the trauma like anniversary dates or noteworthy time anchors. Now let me tell you something. Then the timing of the onset of stress symptoms varies. You can be sectioned if your health or safety are at risk, or to protect other people. They may have cognitive problems such as difficulty thinking, memory problems, attention deficits, mood swings, frustrations, headaches, fatigue, or many other symptoms.

Most brain injuries are mild, and many soldiers with mild TBI can recover with rest and time away from the battlefield. So military estimates that onefifth of the troops with these mild injuries will have prolonged even lifelong symptoms requiring continuing care. You can also be recommended by someone close to you, even though it is more common for a mental health practitioner to make the application for someone to be sectioned. Did you know that the final decision is made by either a responsible clinician -the person who has overall responsibility for your care in hospital or it’s made by a hospital manager -who is responsible for the legality of your detainment. Then, this person going to be your partner, you parents or your siblings. Just think for a moment. Leading to a greater incidence of PTSD, TBI can damage a person’s cognitive function and hinder their ability to manage the consequences of most probably will develop PTSD than those who have not incurred a brain injury.

Second, a mild TBI injury in the combat environment, particularly when associated with loss of consciousness, reflects exposure to a very intense traumatic event that threatens loss of life and significantly increases the risk of PTSD.

Two scientific theories attempt to explain this relationship. It’s an interesting fact that the act was used more than 50000 times last year -an increase of 30 over the last decade, and more than 4000 of those detained were aged between 18 and 24. I may have yelled INCOMING I don’t know but when I came back into my body everyone was looking at me. Whenever clawing at the fake marble colored tiles, attempting to crawl under a magazine rack, I was on the floor.

Now, a growing body of research is finding a link between PTSD and poor physical health.

Researchers have found that compared to veterans without PTSD, those with PTSD have substantially higher post war rates for many chronic conditions including circulatory, nervous system, digestive, musculoskeletal, and respiratory, even after controlling for the major risk factors for these conditions.

People with PTSD have more adverse health outcomes in heaps of domains just like ‘selfreported’ health, morbidity, health care utilization, and mortality. You see, the evidence of the relationship is overwhelming, albeit the ‘psychobiological’ mechanism that causes these adverse general medical health outcomes isn’t well understood. They also have found shorter average life spans. Now regarding the aforementioned fact… Low education, ethnic minority status, younger age, and lower rank are also associated with increased risk. Notice that early childhood adversity, previous trauma, and history of mental illnesses increase the risk of PTSD. Service members process what happens in combat in the context of a few of their lives.

Now this can be done by applying to the Mental Health Tribunal.

a couple of factors was shown to increase the risk of PTSD.

a bit of these factors are particularly common to the deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, that may account for the high rate of injury among service members and veterans. Traumatic brain injury, basically called acquired brain injury or simply head injury, occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. You should take this seriously. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue. May also have a headache that gets worse or does not go away, repeated vomiting or nausea, convulsions or seizures, an inability to awaken from sleep, dilation of one or both pupils, slurred speech, weakness or numbness in the extremities, loss of coordination, and increased confusion, restlessness, or agitation, A person with a moderate or severe TBI may show these same symptoms. So, symptoms of TBI can be mild, moderate, or severe, determined by the extent of the damage to the brain. Person with a mild TBI may remain conscious or may experience a loss of consciousness for a few seconds or minutes. Whenever ringing in the ears, bad taste in the mouth, fatigue or lethargy, a change in sleep patterns, behavioral or mood changes, and trouble with memory, concentration, attention, or thinking, other symptoms of mild TBI include headache, confusion, lightheadedness, dizziness, blurred vision or tired eyes.

Therefore the term mild TBI is synonymous with concussion. Being sectioned means that you are kept in hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 -a piece of legislation that covers the treatment, assessment and rights of those with mental disorders. Individuals respond to traumatic experiences along a continuum. For some, the symptoms intensify, become chronic, and interfere with their ability to function. Also, so it’s a normal stress response to danger and generally dissipates with time. It is most people have a sudden increased arousal and vigilance. Therefore the BBC has updated its cookie policy. We use cookies to ensure that we give you top-notch experience on our website. Such third party cookies may track your use of the BBC website. We and our partners also use cookies to ensure we show you advertising that is relevant to you. Nevertheless, this includes cookies from third party social media websites if you visit a page which contains embedded content from social media.

Some military spouses, in their blogs, describe a similar dynamic, even though many couples are able to withstand the stress of PTSD.

The spouse, hurt and stressed, may snap at the veteran and the anger escalates as the cycle continues.

While becoming uninterested in social and sexual activities, compounding the everyday stress, the veteran may feel emotionally numb and put up a wall. In other situations, the veteran with PTSD may have a sharp temper or violent streak that scares or angers the spouse. Although, while making everyday life for the family incredibly stressful, the veteran gets anxious and angry over little things. Medical research suggests that the intense bursts of brain activity during traumatic experiences may lay down new neural pathways in the brain. Surely it’s associated with a host of chemical changes in the body’s hormonal system, health, and autonomic nervous system. PTSD has a biological basis. You should take this seriously. On the basis of available survey data, an estimated 11 to 20 service percent members sustained a mild TBI/concussion while serving in OEF/OIF. Notice that vA only recently began a widespread TBI screening program and DoD has only recently begun documenting TBIs in every service member’s medical record.

Neither DoD nor VA can estimate the prevalence of TBIs on the basis of screenings.

Overlapping symptoms include sleep disturbances, irritability, physical restlessness, difficulty concentrating, and some memory disturbances.

Otherwise their memory and ability to learn is intact, with PTSD individuals may have trouble remembering the traumatic event. That said, with TBI the individual has preserved older memories, may have difficulty retaining new memories and new learning. So there’re also significant differences, while look, there’re similarities. By the way, the symptoms of the two injuries have some parallel features, albeit PTSD is a biological/psychological injury and TBI is a neurological trauma. You should take it into account. In both injuries, the symptoms may show up months after someone has returned from war, and in both injuries, the veteran may self medicate and present as someone with a substance abuse problem. Early intervention will reduce the chance that the stress reaction will be chronic PTSD.

While leaving them very isolated, So in case treatment is delayed, veterans may develop unhealthy coping strategies and may damage their relationships and social support network.

The challenge for mental health professionals and the veterans themselves is to recognize the difference between what had been termed a normal response to abnormal circumstances and PTSD.

So it’s equally important to identify when these normal stress reactions most probably will lead to functional limitations, while it’s essential to avoid pathologizing normal reactions. I thought of the children I had seen in Iraq and how I never saw one cry, even the wounded ones. While standing in line at the take a glance at stand the feeling was almost unbearable, not enough to hurt but enough to make me really uncomfortable, like a low electric current was flowing through my body. Fact, the people behind me were standing might be triggered by PTSD, or preexisting disorders may increase the risk of PTSD.

a few studies have found that more than 80 people percent who are diagnosed with PTSD also have a generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, or one of a range of psychiatric or substancerelated conditions. You can appeal to the Mental Health Tribunal and everyone who is sectioned is entitled to free legal aid, nevertheless you can’t oppose your sectioning at the time it’s happening. Also, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the publication that defines the criteria used in diagnosing mental disorder, classifies PTSD as an anxiety disorder that arises from exposure to a traumatic event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury.