HCA 240
For this week’s assignment, I have selected to write about Post traumatic stress disorder. I have quite a bit of experience will this illness as well because my husband suffers from Post-traumatic stress disorder following a severe car accident that he was in about 6 years ago. Exposure to trauma is anything but new to the humankind. Post-traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, has been around for centuries but was not given the name Post-traumatic stress disorder until 1980. PTSD was formally thought to be a few different things, such as, shell shock, battle fatigue, accident neurosis, or post-rape syndrome. When PTSD was given its name, in 1980, it was a controversial diagnosis because it was thought to be a weakness or flaw rather than a traumatic event that occurred in a person’s life. When PTSD was first added to the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a traumatic event was conceptualized as a catastrophic stressor that was outside the range of usual human experience. The first professionals that diagnosed PTSD, had events in mind, such as, was, torture, rape, the Nazi holocaust, natural disasters, and human made disasters, just to a name a few. Treatment for PTSD is on a case by case basis, because it depends on the individual, how they got PTSD(what traumatic event) and how severe of a case they have. There are also a lot of different types of treatments, as well, there are psychotherapy treatments, evidence based treatments; meaning when the cause of a person’s PTSD is know they can specifically treat their case specifically and a few more. PTSD is not just about the signs and symptoms, it is about how the person reacts to those signs and symptoms as well. Some symptoms of PTSD are: Having difficulty sleeping, having trouble keeping one’s mind on one thing, feeling anxious, jittery or, irritated for no apparent reason, experiencing a sense of panic