PTSD by Tahura Arshad

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-08 23:07:13 UTC

The focus problem we have chosen is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It relates to the psychological functions of the brain. The focus problem examines how the brain reacts after a person experiences a traumatic event.

PTSD

kahoski2 — 2025-09-08 23:11:04 UTC

People with PTSD often have 1-3 other mental health diagnoses as well. This study, in particular, showcases how people with PTSD are much more likely to suffer from other mental health issues, which can lead to harder lifestyles for those already struggling with PTSD.

Causes of PTSD

aejohn55 — 2025-09-08 23:50:01 UTC

Early childhood trauma being exposed at a young age can affect ptsd. Women veterans and inviduals who experienced childhood trauma\ are more likely to develop PTSD, though anyone who experiences a traumatic event can develop it. Factors like a personal or family history of mental illness, and experiencing other stressors after the trauma also may increase risk.

Who

jfreirei — 2025-09-09 03:08:58 UTC

Women are more at risk due to higher exposure to high-impact trauma than men, as well as at a younger age. Studies also show that lifetime prevalence of PTSD is about two times more common in women, 10-12% in women, 5-6% in men. These differences can be affected by the varying brain chemistry and behaviors between genders.

Who

rcgarc16 — 2025-09-09 18:54:22 UTC

Another Major group that is majorly affected by PTSD is veterans and first due to repeated exposure to traumatic events. Not only that but it has been shown that professionals in high-trauma occupations, such as police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel, face an increased risk. A constant high pressure and high tramua feild like these professions often have people feel at a constant feeling of life and death and have a high guard all the time.

Amygdala

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:12:44 UTC

In the brain, the amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure that is part of the larger limbic system. The amygdala helps us survive by learning and picking up cues throughout the day to recognize what to fear or avoid. It sends signals to the rest of the brain when it detects potential threats. The amygdala is involved not only in fear but also in aggression, learning through punishment, remembering how to do certain things without recalling when you learned them, interpreting someone’s intentions from their words or actions, emotions related to parenting and caregiving, emotions connected to memories, and learned behaviors linked to addiction.

Hippocampus

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:13:03 UTC

The hippocampus is a seahorse-shaped structure inside the brain and is also part of the limbic system. Its main job is to organize memories, moving them from short-term to long-term storage and helping with retrieval. It also learns about your environment to build spatial memory, so you can stay aware of what’s around you, and supports verbal memory, helping you remember words. In addition, it contributes to visual-spatial memory, which lets you recall the position of your body in relation to nearby objects. The hippocampus is essential for declarative (explicit) memory, which is the recollection of facts and personal experiences.

Prefrontal cortex (PFC)

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:13:18 UTC

The PFC relieves information from multiple cortical regions to process present moments. Connections to other cortical areas allow it to control reactions and adaptations to a particular moment. The PFC is also believed to have a role in emotions with its connections to mood-altering neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. The multiple regions of the PFC are also associated with other functions. The dorsolateral region tends to be associated with planning, strategy and decisions, while the orbitofrontal region is related to inhibiting primal responses from another system of the brain.

Amygdala

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:13:39 UTC

The amygdala tends to overreact, creating intense fear and hyper vigilance.This also causes the amygdala to overreact to no threatening stimuli, driving the heightened state of fear, anxiety, and associated with PTSD symptoms.

Hippocampus

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:13:47 UTC

The hippocampus, when affected, can cause the brain to struggle with contextualizing trauma and distinguishing safety from danger. This causes the brain to overgeneralize fear, making someone more susceptible to being put into a state of fear.

Medial Frontal Cortex

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 04:13:56 UTC

The medial frontal cortex is involved with complex thought in humans as well as blocking fear responses. However, with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, with the amount of high levels of norepinephrine, these fear responses begin to become unable to become blocked, which is one of the primary effects of those with PTSD being unable to calm down after recalling traumatic events for a good deal of time.

Symptoms 1#

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 22:10:08 UTC

Hyperarousal is also seen in a lot of ptsd patients, making them more on edge than most people. This stems from previous traumatic events, making them more hyper vigilant, always feeling like they have to look out for anything that could hurt them or make them feel the same emotion they felt in that very moment they became traumatized. It even makes people so cautious that they have an increased heart rate and nightmares stemming from being super paranoid, which leads to insomnia.

Symptoms 2#

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 22:10:14 UTC

Intrusion Symptoms. Here are the common symptoms for people who have PTSD and therefore these are the symptoms.

Repetitive, involuntary memories of the event recurring, unwanted, and distressing memories, nightmares, or flashbacks of the traumatic event, where the person feels like they are reliving it

Symptoms 3#

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 22:10:21 UTC

Symptoms of negative changes in thinking and mood can occur. This includes ongoing negative emotions and thoughts like feeling emotionally numb or detached from friends and family. Additionally, patients can have a hard time feeling positive emotions or can end up uninterested in activities they once enjoyed.

Mental Health Interview

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 22:27:03 UTC

Another approach is to talk with them about what they went through and how they feel after the traumatic event. In other words, an interview can help assess their experience and rule out or confirm PTSD symptoms.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for PTSD

kahoski2 — 2025-09-22 22:35:56 UTC

There is a type of therapy for PTSD, which severely helps with the symptom of emotional numbness in particular, but can also help with regulating the fear from the trauma of PTSD in patients, known as Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT). This is a form of behavioral therapy, allowing for the patient to be able to actually address the emotions they are prohibiting themselves from feeling and in which ways, in order to progress in their own healing by truly opening their minds to choosing to move past those unhealthy habits of numbing and choosing to begin feeling normally once more, though it can take some time.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

aejohn55 — 2025-09-22 22:37:18 UTC

it is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that focuses on helping individuals change their negative thoughts and beliefs about traumatic events. identify and challenge negative thoughts and beliefs related to the trauma

1.Develop more balanced and realistic perspectives

2. Learn coping mechanisms to manage distressing symptoms

Self Report

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-22 22:51:00 UTC

One way to help identify PTSD is by having the person complete a questionnaire that asks about their feelings, behaviors, and thoughts. They can reflect on each question to see if it matches their experience and gradually narrow down possible symptoms. However, because this is self-reported, it cannot provide a final diagnosis. It can, however, offer helpful insight into what might be happening. For an official diagnosis, the person should visit a qualified mental-health professional, share their questionnaire results, and go along with a full clinical evaluation.

Symptom #4

rcgarc16 — 2025-09-22 22:56:45 UTC

Avoidance is seen in many PTSD patients who tend to always steer clear of previous traumatic experiences rather than face them head-on. This shows in the form of making the constant effort to steer clear of trauma-related thoughts and activities that can end up triggering distressing memories or emotions. They often do all they can just to make sure they don't have to ever feel that same emotion.

Traumatic Memory

kahoski2 — 2025-09-29 22:40:37 UTC

Those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often continuously suffer from traumatic memory, from triggers from said traumatic events in their lives, throughout the rest of their time, that can contribute heavily to irrational reactions whenever those traumatic memories come up in correlation to current events going on in their lives. This traumatic memory can disrupt a person's daily life severely or moderately, even ensuring, in some cases, that they have issues with their daily social interactions, work environments, etc.

Affect relationships

tarshad2_1 — 2025-09-29 22:41:22 UTC

One of the long term effects with PTSD is affecting relationships with people. Since the person will always be in a fight or flight mode even if the threat is no longer there. It becomes difficult to trust others or feeling numb and distant from other people. When it comes to social activities can be affected as well and end up withdrawal and isolation from these things. Another thing happens is pushing away loved ones. The person may be angry and upset due to irritability and behaviors the person with PTSD exhibits. It can also be difficult to concentrate in school or work life.

Nightmares/Bad Dreams

aejohn55 — 2025-09-29 22:45:56 UTC

Fear of re-experiencing traumatic events through nightmares and flashbacks can create anxiety about sleeping. Things such as cardiovascullar and many physical conditions can be long term consequences for ptsd. Sleep disturbances also play a big role into the depths of ptsd. Most with ptsd are effected by these viviid nightmares. Re-experiencing the trauma during sleep can hinder the person negatively.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Regards To Treating PTSD

kahoski2 — 2025-10-06 22:12:27 UTC

A long-term treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

The Cost - These types of therapies can vary in cost, especially based on the type of practice a patient is going to and how many days a week. For instance, private practices are usually around $100-250 per hour, while community in-person sessions are usually $20-$100 per session, and online sessions are usually $40-$100 per week. So, the expected cost of treatment is from $20-250.

Insurance coverage - Since this therapy has to do with mental health, it is usual that, most of the time, insurance doesn’t cover anything = not covered at 1 from the 1-5 scale. Most insurance companies only like to deal with physical health issues.

If a person with PTSD chooses to not do Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) because of the cost, their specific conditions with PTSD can severely worsen, lead to eventual severe chronic conditions (whether physical or mental), an extreme lower quality in life, increasing depression, etc.

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy

aejohn55 — 2025-10-06 22:41:30 UTC

One use of long term treatment for PTSD and to stop reoccurring nightmares is Imagery Rehearsal Therapy (IRT).

This therapy helps reduce the inviduialuls who are experiencing these nightmares by having the individual write out their scary dreams and making their thoughts positive it hopefully reform the thoughts of their daily life and then mentally rehearsing the new version.

Results indicate that imagery rehearsal had large effects on nightmare frequency, sleep quality, and PTSD symptoms. These effects were sustained through 6 to 12 month follow-up.

It depends on the individual if it can cover the insurance or not, for examples such as invidual plans,diagnosis and medical neccisity of the treatment.

IRT Treatment can vary to $100-$200 or more , and costs depends on factors such as therapists fees.

Prolonged Exposure therapy

rcgarc16 — 2025-10-06 22:42:07 UTC

A long-term treatment to help people who suffer from ptsd is to expose them to the thing they fear gradually, for them to adjust slowly.

The cost- This type of therapy can vary in price but often sits around $50-300 or more per session, depending on the treatment duration.

Insurance coverage- For most cases, most insurance plans will cover Prolonged Exposure therapy, either fully or partially, but in some way will pay some amount of the therapy. On a scale of 1-5 on how much they would cover it would be somewhere around a 3, saying no matter what they will cover, but whether it's fully or partially is all dependent on how bad it is.

If a person chooses not ot reach out and do this type of therapy, it could lead to their symptoms, like avoidance, negative thoughts, and exaggerated emotional responses, to continue and even grow worse, leading to a decreased quality of life and potential social or occupational impairment

Description of the treatment

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-20 22:34:47 UTC

The therapist works with the patient and tries to talk about the in-depth of the trauma. For example, what triggers it and what terrible memories they have left from it. After knowing the why and what situation, the therapist then talks it out with the patient about new perspectives, meanings to it, and ways to help feel better, and how to handle themselves when it gets triggered.

Short or Long term effect of the Condition designed to treat

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-20 22:36:14 UTC

Long term effects include reduced depression and anxiety, decreased negative emotions like shame or guilt, and increased functioning overall for the mind and body after treatment.

Psychosocial treatment for PTSD patients who develop anxiety disorders

kahoski2 — 2025-10-20 22:36:49 UTC

- As a result of having PTSD, one can often develop the psychological issue of anxiety disorders. One treatment to effectively treat this psychological issue of anxiety disorders is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT is used to treat a numerous amount of disorders, mainly focusing on improving the behaviors, both overall and underlying, that are effecting the patient badly and finding specific ways to ensure the patient starts having more healthy behaviors.

- To treat an anxiety disorder that developed from PTSD, one can undergo Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), in order to better face their fears through exposure therapy and build up confidence against those fears. This therapy can take a little bit or a while to fully kick in, but it does take time nonetheless. The treatment is designed to treat the short term behavioral effects, which make it difficult for the patient currently, to help the patient behave more normally in their every day lives and the long term effect would treat the severe underlying cause or disorder to generally improve the condition to a much more reduced state.

- Mental health therapists, psychiatrists, and some psychologists can deliver this treatment to patients with anxiety disorders as a result of having PTSD.

What type of professional required to deliver this treatment?

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-20 22:36:54 UTC

The most common professionals that can help deliever Cognitive therapy consist of psychologists, neuropsychologists, and other specialists who focus on rehabilitating cognitive function.

ART Treatment 1#

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:02:20 UTC

One specific rehabilitation treatment to treat the issue of cognitive impairments from PTSD affecting daily life is Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART).

For each treatment identified (if one was identified), provide a brief (1-2 sentences) description of the treatment.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:05:10 UTC

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a psychotherapy treatment where the particular therapist will guide you through your trauma and ask you to continuously place positive things in your line of thinking, with certain negative thoughts/memories, in order to basically replace them and begin to block out the negative with happiness. This treatment is intended to replace triggers, nightmares, negative thoughts, etc. with these happy things that the patient chooses.

For each treatment identified (if one was identified), describe what short or long-term effect of the condition it would be designed to treat.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:05:59 UTC

The short/long-term effects of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that this treatment would be designed to treat are a lack of interest in hobbies, jobs, and relationships, consistent disruption of sleep through nightmares, inability to focus because of hallucinations/flashbacks, etc. (ART) would ensure that some manner of focus, be it small or large, would be reintroduced consistently into the patient's life to get them back on track where they have been lacking in because of the effects of PTSD in their life so far.

For each treatment identified (if one was identified), identify what type of professional would be required to deliver the treatment.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:06:08 UTC

A licensed and well trained therapist would be required to deliver this treatment.

EMDR Treatment 2#

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:11:00 UTC

(1-2 sentences) description of the treatment.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:11:06 UTC

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy is one of the treatments for PTSD. What happens is that the patient moving their eyes in a specific way when processing a traumatic memory during the therapy session.

Describe what short or long-term effect of the condition it would be designed to treat.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:11:36 UTC

It is designed to reduce symptoms long term, such as anxiety and depression levels, as well as improving quality of life and the way the brain processes trauma and emotions.

Identify what type of professional would be required to deliver the treatment.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-10-27 22:11:43 UTC

Professional people that can deliver this treatment are the licensed mental health professionals like psychologist, licensed counselor or licensed clinical social worker.

For each special population identified, provide a brief (1-2 sentences) description of why that population is at greater risk or is more negatively affected.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-11-10 22:03:39 UTC

Veterans of war are specifically affected by having PTSD from war, as this can often make them sensitive to loud noises (bomb noise) and can make it difficult to sleep or even cope during the day from the recurring flashbacks of constant fear and death. Also, the severe exposure to this type of extreme stress, coupled with PTSD can often lead to other significant mental health issues, such as depression in less worse cases and borderline personality disorder in worse cases.

Description of why that population is at greater risk of PTSD?

tarshad2_1 — 2025-11-10 22:03:42 UTC

Incidents such as war or natural disasters force many people to flee their homes. PTSD can be developed because of facing direct violence, the death of a loved one, and other tragic events.

For each special population, identify what special challenges they may face with prevention, diagnosis or treatment of their condition.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-11-10 22:04:06 UTC

Veterans can often struggle getting healthcare after they come home, due to inability to acquire jobs because of the physical and mental health issues they come home with or lack of a higher education with many veterans having gone into the army with only a high school diploma or less. Thus, they can often not acquire accurate and necessary care for PTSD because of a lack of stable occupation. Some veterans often choose to not go and attain health care in other cases of denial of their new mental struggles.

For each special population, identify what special challenges they may face with prevention, diagnosis or treatment of their condition.

tarshad2_1 — 2025-11-10 22:04:09 UTC

Some of the challenges that refugees face when it comes to dealing with PTSD are that they may find it harder to resettle and migrate to other places, seeing as they leave the only home they have ever known. Not only that, but they can also struggle with making a living because they are constantly facing discrimination or poor living conditions, even after fleeing conflict. With this comes the the difference in cultures and maken diagnosising treatment a little hard but not only that but the treatment offered to them can most times go against their cultural belifes and lead to them not accepting the help.

Treatment identified/brief description (1-2 sentences) on treatment

kahoski2 — 2025-11-17 22:07:33 UTC

Sound therapy can be used to treat hyperacusis in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients. Hyperacusis is a hearing problem where it seems every noise is too loud for the auditory system.

Treatment description: Sound therapy, in the case of treating hyperacusis with someone with PTSD, would open the door for a person struggling with hearing noises at too loud of a level, which causes them to isolate, to ease themselves back into hearing all kinds of noises at all ranges of level without feeling any discomfort after the treatment is through.

For each treatment identified (if one was identified), describe what short or long-term effect of the condition it would be designed to treat.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-17 22:07:52 UTC

Sound therapy: The treatment would start at low volume noises at a level the patient is already comfortable with and then they would move up from there to increase the patient’s tolerance with noise levels until they are able to listen to sounds without that intense volume in their head. The long-term effect of the condition that this therapy would be designed to treat would be the patient's inability to listen to certain noises, in order to eventually establish the ability of the patient to once again, without feeling fear or needing to isolate to a complete lack of sound, hear all types of noises.

For each treatment identified (if one was identified), identify what type of professional would be required to deliver the treatment.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-17 22:08:19 UTC

The type of professional that would be required to deliver this treatment of sound therapy to PTSD patients would be certified sound therapists or occupational therapists. There are more options of who could deliver this treatment, however, these two are the most professional for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients who have the issue of hyperacusis.

For each technology identified, provide a brief (1-2 sentences) description of that technology and whether it is used to prevent, diagnose or treat the focus condition.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-24 22:01:51 UTC

There is virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) that can be used to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients through an updated type of exposure therapy coupled with technology to unleash potential healing in a more realistic type of setting, rather than just a therapist using her words. This treatment is a, much less used, type of exposure therapy used with people with not only PTSD, but anxiety, and other types of such illnesses. However, it is far likely to be more used in the future, due to how this therapy is much more controllable for therapists to truly contain the emotional experience and control which emotions the patient feels. This technology offers a more stable way for this to happen than through general exposure therapy through in person description techniques and the like.

This is used as a treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients.

For each technology, identify any possible negative aspects of utilization of that technology.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-24 22:02:08 UTC

The possible negative outcomes of this aspect of utilization of that technology in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatments for patients include causing panic attacks from the extremely realistic nature of the virtual reality presented, causing temporary distress, and the possibility of VR-induced motion sickness. The motion sickness, in particular, can be very unhelpful in the use of treatment, due to how this would put an utter blockade in the road for the treatment's efficiency on the patient.

For each technology identified, provide a brief (1-2 sentences) description of that technology and whether it is used to prevent, diagnose or treat the focus condition.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-24 22:03:15 UTC

There are Wearable Stress-Monitoring Devices (e.g., HRV Sensors) that help track heart rate variability (HRV) and can detect sudden changes in a person's stress levels, potentially indicating a flashback to something traumatic. This also allows tracking the mental state of someone and helps to assess the effectiveness of therapies. This is accomplished because this device also shows what someone feels as a psychological response to their trauma and how to access it from there.

For each technology, identify any possible negative aspects of utilization of that technology.

kahoski2 — 2025-11-24 22:03:28 UTC

One of the main negatives that comes from this would be the risk of heightened anxiety over the fixation of results, causing someone to force themselves to feel a certain way, resulting in inaccurate data. This can cause a misdiagnosis because it could send a patient into an anxiety attack, causing a heart rate spike, and messing with information.