Acute Stress Disorder can occur when anxiety and dissociative symptoms develop rapidly as a reaction to traumatic event, or an event that was perceived as extremely stressful. It is diagnosed when:
- The person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with (e.g., can include learning of) an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or other.
- Though not required, the persons response is likely to involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
Either while experiencing or after experiencing the distressing event, the individual has 3 or more of the following dissociative symptoms:
- A subjective sense of numbing, detachment, or absence of emotional responsiveness.
- A reduction in awareness of his or her surroundings (e.g.," being is a daze")
- De realisation (where the external world feels a bit un-real and distant)
- Dissociative amnesia (i.e., inability to recall an important aspect of trauma)
The disturbance of an acute stress disorder must last for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 4 weeks, and must occur within 4 weeks of the traumatic event.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can occur immediately after someone has experienced a terrifying experience or months and years after the event. It is normal to experience confusion and distress after a traumatic event and sometimes the symptoms pass on their own. It is when symptoms persist that they can become troublesome.
The type of events that can cause PTSD include:
- Serious road accidents
- Violent personal assaults, such as sexual assault, mugging or robbery
- Prolonged sexual abuse, violence or severe neglect
- Witnessing violent deaths
- Military combat
- Being held hostage
- Terrorist attacks
- Natural disasters, such as severe floods, earthquakes or tsunamis
PTSD can also be experienced as a reliving of the events, including flashbacks, nightmares, feelings of guilt, isolation and outbursts of anger and irritability. For more information and references please refer to:
www.nhs.uk/Conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder
