Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

What is PTSD

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is considered a mental health condition that develops in response to significant trauma exposure, causing substantial impairment to occupational and social function for greater than one month. 

Symptoms include:
    - Flashbacks and dissociative responses to triggers, causing intense, prolonged physical and psychological distress
    - Memories and/or dreams/nightmares that are intrusive, recurrent, involuntary, and distressing
    - Avoidance of internal or external triggers that may cause re-experiencing of the event
    - Negative alterations to cognition or mood relating to the experience, including oneself.
    - Hyper-vigilance and marked alterations in arousal or reactivity (always being on guard)
    - Depersonalization or feeling detached from oneself or out of the body with no control of its function
    - Derealization or feeling as though the environment is unreal.
    - Anxiety and Depression
Treatment Involves combination of medication management and psychotherapy
    - Trauma focused therapy, cognitive processing therapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, exposure therapy
    - SSRI's, SNRI's