Occurrence and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in an elderly patient after a traffic accident

✍ Scribed by Markus Burgmer; Gereon Heuft

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 53 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/gps.1047

✦ Synopsis

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) describes the development of characteristic symptoms after a traumatic event in which the person involved (or those close to him) experience a threat to life or a threat to being injured (criterion A).

Postulated are the following:

* repeated and intrusive memories of the traumatic situation (criterion B1) in form of flashbacks (criterion B3), nightmares (criterion B2), or severe stress activated by similar situations (criterion B4-5); * continuous avoidance of stimuli (activities, thoughts, talks, feelings) associated with the trauma (criterion C1-2), including lack of memory of important aspects of the situation (criterion C3) and a 'psychic numbness' (criterion C4-7); * as well as persisting symptoms of increased tension (criterion D) in the form of sleep disorders (criterion D1), hypervigilance (criterion D4), irritability or jumpiness (criterion D2,5), or lack of concentration (criterion D3).