The causes of this disorder can include any kind of sexual abuse, physical or emotional abuse, threat to the life of the prospect or to any person close to him/her, exposure to any accident, exposure to fierce incidents like wars, any sort of medical illness of the prospect himself or of any person very close to him/her, taking drugs, seeing someone being killed or badly injured etc or being a victim of any other psychological trauma as a result of events like kidnapping, being a prisoner in a war, being a hostage etc.
Taking these things into account it is observed that participant of wars which include forces like army, navy and air force. Among these forces it is observed that the threat of being a victim of such a disorder is more in Army soldiers because of their greater exposure to the combat and because they are the ones who are usually got imprisoned by the opponents. However in children the causes of Post traumatic Stress Disorder are normally observed to occur because of sexual abusing and the other reason is medical illness of mother of the child during pregnancy.
This medical illness during pregnancy causes some sort of chemical misbalance in the body of the child which can result in post traumatic stress disorder in later stages of life. All of the causes of Post traumatic Stress Disorder are somewhat a mix of the prospects life experience, his temperament and his genetics. And it may also cause because of any natural chemical change in the brain of the prospect.
Post traumatic Stress Disorder differs a lot from normal psychological depression and it has been observed that the patients of Post traumatic Stress Disorder respond more strongly to the psychological tests like dexamethasone suppression test as compared to the patients who are psychologically depressed. And it is also observed in post traumatic stress disorder patients that cotisol secretion is low and catecholamine secretion is high , in urine, as compared to the normal people.
Hence low level of cotisol is regarded as one of the reasons biological reasons for getting into post traumatic stress disorder by many researchers however this is still controversial among the medical community because patients of post traumatic stress disorder with high cotisol level have also been found. DIAGNOSIS The diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder is done on the bases of symptoms and sign explained above and on the bases of those symptoms some tests are conducted to ensure the diagnosis of the disorder.
The general practice is that the health professional asks the prospect some questions regarding the symptoms and about the event that resulted in such symptoms. However as a general practice the health professional should use the Diagnosis and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to follow a standard criteria of diagnosing the disorder in the patient. Some of the criteria that should be meet to ensure the diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder includes: • The patient should have been exposed to some major event like death of someone, life threat or other trauma.
• The patient should have responded to the event abnormally i. e with intense fear, by showing desperation etc • Recalling of the event in the patients mind afterwards. eg. flashback of the event etc. • Patient should have tried to avoid facing the situations similar to the event. • Feeling insecure and menaced causing things like disturbed sleep etc. • The symptoms last for at least one month. • The symptoms cause disturbance in the life of the patient and is making it difficult for the patient to do his daily tasks.