A mental health condition that can develop after a traumatic event, often causing persistent distressing symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, and heightened anxiety.
Causes
- Serious accidents
- Combat
- Natural disasters
- Sexual violence
- Witnessing a violet death
Clinical Features
- Flashbacks: Re-experiencing the traumatic event
- Intrusive thoughts about the event
- Nightmares: The dream may be related to the initial event
- Hypervigilance
- Heightened startle response
- Irritability
- Poor concentration
- Insomnia
Management
- NICE recommend offering patients trauma-focused CBT as the management option for PTSD.
- Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) can also be offered for individuals who have not had combat related traumas. EMDR is a therapy technique that involves asking a patient to recall certain stressful memories alongside a sensory input such as moving the eyes from side-to-side.
- In patients with a preference for drug treatment, venlafaxine or SSRIs can be used.
References
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng116/chapter/Recommendations#recognition-of-post-traumatic-stress-disorder
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559129/
