Research Paper on PTSD
Then there’s the second set of symptoms which are called avoidance symptoms where they do things like avoiding an area where the event occurred or somewhere that reminds them of that event, getting a strong sense of guilt, depression, worry or coming emotionally numb, not being able to remember the event or losing interest in things that they once enjoyed doing. Then there is the third set of symptoms called hyperbolas symptoms which include having angry outbursts, trouble sleeping, being easily startled and feeling on edge(“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” 1).
PITS can occur in anyone and it is something that is becoming a major disorder in today’s society with the Iraq/Afghanistan wars that have been going on since 2001. There has been a lot of research done on it to prove that PITS is actually real and that it is affecting more and ore people, especially war veterans, and going untreated. Review of Research: There was an experiment that was done by 7 doctors who have M. D. S and Ph. Ads.
They did a random, controlled experiment on a small group of active service members with the goal of comparing which treatment for PITS has better results, TAUT or IVR-GET. The experiment procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board and an independent medical monitor. It was conducted at U. S. Navy medical facilities in San Diego and Camp Pendleton and followed all federal and military guidelines in the treatment of Service Members and research participants(McKay 224).
The experiments and patients both were aware of what was going on in the experiment, had to sign consent forms that said they were allowed to leave at any time knowing that they would not receive active duty pay and that they were participating willingly and then the patients signed up for IVR-GET or TAUT and there was an equal amount of patients in each type of treatment(McKay 224). The abbreviation TAUT means treatment as usual which means that the service members go through normal treatments for PITS like prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, Eye Movement Desensitizing and
Reprocessing, substance rehab, inpatient services or a combination of them(McKay 225). And the abbreviation IVR-GET means Virtual Reality-Graded Exposure Therapy which is as it sounds. It is a virtual reality simulation that allows the patient to experience their traumas and phobias in a controlled environment and also be monitored by equipment that measures their response to their surroundings in the virtual reality they’re experiencing.
The therapist during this IVR simulation can also increase or decrease the stressing factors of the environment based off the patients response to what they’re experiencing(McKay 223). The experimenters hypothesized that “patients with combat-related P T SD would be more likely to experience clinically significant improvements in IVR-GET than treatment as usual(Tall)(McKay 224). ” To participate in the experiment the patients had to have CAPS scores of 40 or higher and then their medical records were reviewed.
CAPS is the Clinician Administered PITS Scale. The experiment was conducted over a 10 week period with a follow up assessment 1 0 weeks after the experiment ended and it was considered a success if the it showed a clinically meaningful improvement, which means 30% or greater, reduction of PITS symptoms tit CAPS(McKay 224). They then went through their experiments and were assessed after the 10 week period.
The results showed that of all 10 participants who had participated in the IVR-GET, seven of them showed a 30% or greater improvement in CAPS and of the 1 0 who participated in the TAUT treatment only one of the returning nine showed a 30% or greater improvement on the CAPS (1 did not show up to complete the post assessment until later)(McKay 226). The results show that the IVR-GET treatment works better than the TAUT treatment by a significant amount.
Though the researchers said that this should also be based off the patient’s deeds since everyone responds to treatments differently and that there will probably be no “one-size-fits-all approach” due to the fact previously stated. A research team of 5 that conducted a PITS survey on soldiers with amputated limbs or spinal injuries in a rehabilitation facility in Sir Lankan. The treatment for soldiers in the war in Sir Lankan is more physically based then mentally and it is a known fact that there is a higher risk Of PITS in soldiers who have been in battle(Abseiling 377).
PITS is prevalent in about 30% of war veterans, male and female both( Abseiling 377). The study was one of the first done in Sir Lankan since no one has thought to do it previously and was carried out in 2009. They used a questionnaire that was based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; the questionnaire was made based on the Impact of Event Scale and PITS symptom scale(Abseiling 377). The questionnaire was translated into Signals and it was pre-tested in other injury groups and then from that, they refined the questionnaire to fit their needs and gave that to the spinal injuries and amputees(Abseiling 377).
The research they did was a cross sectional duty, which means that they used different people who had similar interests to the study, and then got willing participants to take part in the research. The results showed that of the 96 participants, 40 of them indicated a diagnosis Of PITS(Abseiling 378). That means that 41 . 7% of participants were diagnosed with PITS and are not being treated for it and would not be if they had not taken the survey to find out.
They did this study with Vietnam veterans and soldiers who went to Afghanistan and found that 30% of those soldiers also had PITS and were not being treated for it until afterwards also(McKay 379). This study shows that even though we give our soldiers the medical attention they need, they are not getting all of it and that should be fixed. There was an experiment done about the medical research done on twins, combat exposed and non-combat exposed, along with comparing previous studies of PITS to their medical research. They used PITS patients and a control group.
For the ;ins they are using the ones who have PITS and the ones who do not and then comparing their Mrs.(Pitman 772). The Mrs. show that the combat exposed twin who has PITS have an enlarged Hippocratic area and that the combat unexposed twin had a high risk factor for PITS cause the twin had PITS. Their Hippocratic area was also enlarged when compared to the control twins who had no PITS and a low risk factor(Pitman 772). The article goes through every part of the brain and compares the scans of the combat exposed and combat unexposed twin groups, control and experimental, comparing the area of study, like the preferential cortex.
They used previous nonrecurring literature that stated that the preferential cortex reduces in size with PITS and did small to find that patients with PITS had a reduced volume in their rosters(paralegal) FMP and in the dorsal anterior ungulate cortex(Dacca). Which is the area of the brain that corresponds to Broadband area and can also be called anterior mid-consulate cortex(Pitman 772-773). It goes through every biological aspect you could think of and speculates off of the research previously done to the medical tests they have conducted to show how PITS affects the brain, hormones, genes, and animal studies.
Then their conclusions at the end to tell you how this will help future medical treatments Of PITS. There was a study done about how the medical drugs that have been developed for PITS are very lacking in the ability to help PITS patients. Records show that patients who receive pharmacological treatments like Girls parenting and serialize barely ever exceed 60% and even less achieve clinical remission(Bailey 221 Even placebo-trials of other medications for PITS have failed and recent studies of medications that are approved have failed to show desired results in patients(Pitman 222).
The article is basically going over the effects of the drugs that are usually used to treat PITS like noradrenergic, serotonin, endogenous cannoning and podia systems along with hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal (HAP) axis and then room figuring out what works with these and what does not, a possible future pharmacological intervention that could actually work and show results(Pitman 222).
They then go into detail Of each drug, explaining what it is made up of and how it does and does not work in relation to PITS, including studies that have been done previously, charts, references to other works and explanations for the large words and confusing terminology. The conclusion of the article states that biological markers alone are not sufficient by themselves, especially since treatment is limited to symptom management rather than fixing the biological cause(Pitman 227).
