Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

What is post-traumatic stress disorder and who does it affect? This disorder is an anxiety disorder that can affect many different people. Those affected can range from survivors of rape and natural disasters to military service men and women. 10% of women and 5% of men are diagnosed with PTSD in their lifetime, and others will experience adverse effects from trauma at some point in their lives. When an individual is faced with terror less critical body functions such as parts of the brain that control memory emotion and the part that processes thinking will get turned off. This is done for immediate physical safety; once they are turned off it will call the heart rate to increase and cause more blood to sent to the muscles.

People with post-traumatic stress disorder may develop additional disorders such as depression, substance abuse, problems of memory and other problems of physical and mental health. This disorder is also associated with impairment of the person’s ability to function in social or family life. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder can cause a person to relive their experiences through nightmares and flashbacks and they will have difficulty sleeping and this is something that can impair a person’s daily life.

More than half of men that suffer from PTSD also have a problem with alcohol. They also suffer from co-occurring problems such as depression, followed by conduct disorder as well as drugs. In women the most common co-occurring problem is depression which is experienced with under a half of the women that suffer from the disorder. Women also suffer from social anxiety and may have some problems with alcohol. Vietnam veterans that suffer from PTSD were found to have many problems with family and other interpersonal relationships, problems with employments and increased incidents of violence.

A person is not diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder unless they have symptoms that last at least a month....