Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is that kind of fear, anxiety or emotional sickness that develops after one is subjected or has experienced a life threatening or simply an unsafe exposure to something frightening. Traumatic activities that can trigger off this type of disorder could include brutal personal attacks, human or natural disasters, military actions like bombing and shooting of civilians and other grievous accidents. People suffering from this ordeal report frequent occurrence of such thoughts or bad memories. Their mood change when they meet people who had the same fate.
Post Traumatic Disorder was common after the September 11, 2001 bombing in New York and many people exhibited PSTD and since then, the prevalence of the disease has been on the increase. (Niles et al, 2003) Basically this research paper is going to talk about the post traumatic stress disorder that the September 11, 2001 bomb victim survivors suffered. The paper will conduct an extensive and intensive analysis of the same and will try to highlight the measures and mechanism that were put in place to address the problem. It will also give a short introduction, a brief history of the disease and conclude with a recap of the key points.
At the very last page is a list of all the resources that were consulted. PTSD was first identified with the world war veterans but no serious measures were taken to address the problem. It only caught the attention of the government after the number of those suffering from the disease increased during and after the Vietnam War. The victims had characteristic behaviors that were indicative of this disorder for example, they would sharply react to any stimuli related with war effects, they reported increased occurrence of traumatic dreams about the war activities and were overly anxious.
By 1990s, statistics shown that about eight percent of the Americans were affected by the disease and since that time, the number of those suffering from it has significantly gone up and especially after the World Trade Center (WTC) and Pentagon bomb attacks by terrorists in New York City. Witnessing hijacked jets slamming into and destroying those buildings was a nasty experience that had very serious consequences afterwards especially to those who witnessed live and to those both TV viewers and the victims themselves.
As per the survey that was conducted by Cohen, about 17 percent of the Americans who lived outside the city of New York portrayed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after those terrorist attacks. To him, the most affected were women and especially those that had depression history. (Murray, 42) According to Litz (192), the post traumatic stress prevalence increased as you moved away from the city but this survey was contradicted by another that shown that cases of post traumatic stress disorders were not reported outside New York City.
What those people exhibited were not enough to be referred to as PSTD for they were only surprised and worried. According to a study was conducted by the New York City Health Department in collaboration with Atlanta’s centers for disease control and prevention, forty percent of the Americans who were interviewed seven weeks after New York bombings said they experienced post traumatic stress disorders for example, they said they experienced sleep loss, irritability, anxiety, emotional numbness and depression. About a third of those that were consulted said they needed counseling services (Gorsks, 2001)