Transcript Symptoms of trauma II

Posttraumatic stress disorder
(PTSD)
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Basically anxiety disorder
Can happen after experiencing a situation,
which constitute heavy stress and emotional
load, surpass usual human experience and
would be traumatizing for most of the people
Main symptoms are posttraumatic flashbacks,
avoidant behaviour and non-specific symptoms
like sleep and mood disorders
Trauma – definition
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Trauma happens in case of existence of a such external
stimulus, which evokes extreme horror and shock, entails
immediate experiencing of life imperilment or body and/or
psychic integrity, brings feeling of helplessness, impossibility
to escape, inconceivability.
Reaction of the organism is more important than the stimulus
which causes trauma (it depends on our interpretation, if we
perceive some stimulus as traumatogenic and the other not).
Developmental trauma in comparison to a shock trauma
happens in a long time span, often in a period of preverbal
development. Usually, most patients are not aware of it.
There is a difference between cause and trigger of trauma
Factors influencing trauma
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The situations itself, its lenght, intensity, frequency
The individual – age, somatic and psychic health,
tolerance to stress
Life context in the situations of trauma
Life experiencies (failures, achievements)
Learned capabilities to cope with traumatogenic
situations
Self-confidence and availibility of resources of
support (external resources -personality, internal
resources, social network)
Faith, values
Traumatogenic factors I
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Natural catastrophe
Loss of close person
Infidelity, divorce, loss of child
Accidents, injuries
Physical and psychical bullying
Neglect (childrens, older persons)
Assault, kidnap, blackmail (or just perceiving these acts)
Unintentional killing
Iatrogenic traumatisation due to way of giving informations to
patient
Traumatogenic factors II
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Intrauterine trauma, child birth trauma
Disease, high temperature (febrile smasms), random
intoxications, loss of orientation, apneusis)
Abortion, interruption
Some medical, chirurgic, stomatologic operations
(tonsilectomia)
Anaesthesia, narcosis
Loss of intimacy, dehumanization (doctor´s round)
Long-term fixation of limbs, immobility
Dying, or experience of dying
Symptoms of trauma
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Excessive irritability (also light, sound,pain),
alertnes, hyperactivity
Withrawal, dissociation, feeling helpless
flashbacks
Sleep disorders, fear of darkness, nightmares
Swings of mood and energy, excessive
emotional reactions or no reactions
Panic, anxiety, phobia
Symptoms of trauma II
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Psychical emptiness, derealisation avoidance
behaviour
fascination with dangerous situations
frewuent crying
excessive or diminished sexuality
Amnesia, memory disorders
Loss of ability tu love, care of others, make friends
fear of intimacy
fear of going insane
Symptoms of trauma III
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Excessive or no shyness
Inability to keep a promise
Chronic fatigue or lack of energy
Feelings of isolation, derealisation
Jubilee syndrom
Characteristics of burns – patients with experience
of psycho-trauma or high stress in their history
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Anxieties, mood swings, tension, low ability or inability to relax, abnormal
emotional reactions regarding timing and intensity.
Regressive behaviour, alexithymia, psychosomatic problems.
Too high or too low abashmend.
Unability to plan and to orient oneself on future.
Abnormal sensitivity to pain (too high or too low pain threshold).
Abnormal or weak reaction to psychiatric medication.
Resistance to psychological treatment (banal informations, avoidance).
Little or no ability to follow voluntarily procedures prescribed by
specialists.
Hazardous behaviour, frequent injuries, accidents or selfinfliction, signs of
deprivation, dependency behaviour in the patients´ history.
Dysfunctional family (often masked by family members).
Research on trauma
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Delinquency. According to the research, children which experienced developmental
trauma, have disorders of attention, of recognition of social danger, disorders of
perceiving of space (depth, lenght), of gross and fine motoric activity.
Consequently, they suffer from injuries more often than other children. For
example, almost 20 % of youth in South America´s favelas die because of
hazardeous games, such as ridding on the roof of the train in front of tunnels. These
children are often traumatized by their deficient social enviroment.
Alcoholism. As far as 90 % of women – alcoholics, are in fact PTSD, similarly
many drug users.
Also border-line, dissociative (multiple), narcistic personality disorder, bipolar
behaviour (in fact alternating of alfa-activation and beta- avoidance stress reaction)
can be the consequences of trauma.
Disorders of body sensitivity, automutilations, also prostitution
Pseudo-inflammations of tendons (carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, tendon of Achilles)
Multiple sclerosis
Algic syndrom, somatizations in various muscles
Chronic fatigue syndrom
Polyartritis, thyroid gland, kidneys etc….
Ethical problems
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Many patient´s can be traumatized by their injury,
illness or due to other life experiences preceding
medical treatment. This is not often recognized and
properly treated with respect.
Many patient´s can be traumatized or retraumatized in
the context of medical treatment and because of the
variability of trauma symptoms, this is often even not
recognized by the medical staff or even by the patient
himself.