Causes

It is said that Acrophobia can be hereditary, that is children might just inherit it from parents or due to some traumatic experience associated with the object of fear, which makes the perception negative and scary. In fact it is said that fear of heights can also be non associative and it is general human reflex that works, more in some individuals which is termed as fear. Two terms have been coined - one fear and the other phobia; phobia is an extreme case of fear. The fourth cause of Acrophobia can be the inability to maintain balance, which leads to an alertness so as to avoid unnecessary accidents.

Treatment

Most of the experts believe that people live in fear throughout their lives because they are too scared to even try to get out of their phobias. The incident or incidents that might have given this kind of a negative perception might have been simple but the mind refuses to forget the incident and get rid of it. Most of the therapies involve confrontation with the fear and to make it simpler, the patient is prescribed Beat Blockers, which block the signs and symptoms of anxiety when the patient faces the object of fear. Once the patient faces the fear he/she is helped to form a positive perception about the situation. The positive perception should be strong enough to come in mind before the deep rooted negative one. The patient should find it easier to learn and understand. During the process to keep the patient calm and away from agitation antidepressants and sedatives should be given.

Everyone is susceptible to a fear of heights, but when the fear causes a person to have panic attacks and consistently avoid situations that involve heights, their condition becomes a phobia. People who have acrophobia, also known as altophobia, have an extreme and irrational fear of heights. Individuals who suffer from this disorder can become terrified to the point that they cannot physically remove themselves from situations in which they become fearful. The phobia, in effect, becomes so paralyzing that it actually poses a danger to those who have it. Common Facts About Acrophobia The prevalence of acrophobia is between 2 and 5% of the population. Twice as many women have acrophobia as men.

It is not vertigo. Vertigo is a spinning sensation that someone gets when he or she is not actually spinning. Rational fear of heights is instinctual in many mammals. Experiments have shown that even human infants are reluctant to crawl onto a glass floor with what looks like a few meters of free fall below it, showing that the phobia could be innate rather than a learned fear. It may relate to poor recognition of visual cues. Causes of Acrophobia Like all phobias, researchers have theorized acrophobia to be the result of traumatic experiences. In other instances, acrophobia has been linked to fear of loud noises, fear of the poor structural integrity of buildings and instinct rooted in poor balance.