Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Long Term Effects

 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was called ”shell shock” during World War I. The term we use today – PTSD –
is less vivid and more clinical-sounding. But it refers to the same phenomenon: psychological and physical after-
effects associated with traumatic experiences.

The disorder has proven difficult to study because its symptoms and their severity vary widely and often present
differently in women than they do in men.

Though PTSD is still most popularly associated with veterans of military combat, it is believed to affect civilians
who suffer severe abuse or other heightened forms of psychological and physical stress, such as sexual abuse or
car accidents.

A new study published in the September 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry focused on soldiers returning
from combat in the Iraq war. The study found that PTSD causes chemical changes in the brain that can linger for
at least a year. Other studies have found that symptoms persist well beyond one year.

PTSD victims tend to be in a continuous state of heightened alertness. The trauma that precipitates the disorder
essentially conditions them to be ever-ready for a life threatening situation to arise at any moment. As a result,
they have increased reaction times, which might be characterized as a positive short-term gain. But the
continuous release of brain chemicals that accompany this reaction time – and their inability to control when this
heightened reactivity will occur – take psychological and biological tolls on PTSD victims over time.

The 2009 study also found that increased alertness was accompanied by a decrease in the ability to learn, retain
or even pay attention to information not associated with combat situations. The chemical shift essentially
redirects their brains to focus abnormally on immediate survival.

While the 2009 study did not find the soldiers’ neurological changes had any connection with depression or
alcohol and drug abuse, other studies over the past 25 years have found addiction and chronic depression to be
common in PTSD sufferers.

Other long term side effects of PTSD include an inability to sleep, vivid nightmares and obsessive thoughts
surrounding the trauma. Sufferers are also tormented by an “alarm reaction”
(http://www.childtrauma.org/ctamaterials/memory_states.asp), becoming jittery or even terrified when loud
noises resemble sounds they associate with the trauma. For example, combat veterans often react as if guns are
firing them at when they are startled by the noise of a car backfiring. Repeated instances of the alarm reaction tax
the autonomic nerve system over time – which could result in decreased motor skills and coordination.

 
 
 

Sleep deprivation and the physical strain of prolonged hyper-alertness may eventually lead to a weakening of the
body’s immune system. Other physical complications like cardiovascular disease could be directly related to the
toll PTSD takes on the sufferer’s body over an extended period of time.

Emotional disorders like depression seem to be more common in female PTSD sufferers, while men appear more
likely to develop addiction problems. Both genders have been found to suffer from panic attacks and violent fits
anger. They have difficulty developing or maintaining relationships with other people. Continuous study will
give us a clearer picture of what PTSD does to its sufferers in the long term.