From the category archives:
Edvard Munch Anxiety 1893 From the Havard Heart Letter (no date given) BOSTON, MA – Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) isn’t limited to soldiers or witnesses of a horrifying event. It can also appear after a heart attack, a stroke, or heart surgery. Not only does PTSD cause emotional and psychological distress, it may also slow [...]
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PTSD isn’t just something that happens to Veterans — physical trauma, such as the experience of a heart attack or bypass surgery — can also trigger PTSD. Medical Marijuana for PTSD Psychcentral Rick Naubert, Ph.D. November 5, 2009 Medical Marijuana for PTSD ?A new study carried out by Dr. Irit Akirav and research student Eti [...]
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Although this is interesting research with interesting implications, there is no way that watching a graphic video of a car crash is the same as having PTSD. Anyone going through a PTSD type experience is not going to have any interest in playing Tetris… And I really like Tetris.. I can see it now, when [...]
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This post continues with the theme of why it can be so difficult to get over a heart attack. Although research has suggested that about 15% of folks who go through a heart attack can be diagnosed with PTSD, I think that this is an under-estimate. Research with brain scans is showing structural changes after [...]
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George Stubbs Horse Frightened by a Lion (exhibited 1763) Amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampal function in PTSD. Shin LM, Rauch S Pitman RK. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2006 Jul;1071:67-79. One of the problems with treating PTSD is that it is a very-strongly conditioned fear response that becomes “hard-wired” into the system. Stimuli associated [...]
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309.81 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span) Three months after the heart attack, I went to Home Depot to buy something for the house. I walked inside, saw the plethora of nice things to make a nice [...]
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As mentioned in previous posts, heart attacks are almost always traumatic (whether they meet the full criteria for PTSD or not). Art therapy is one way to approach the trauma in way without making it worse (which talking about the trauma can do.) The statement in the following article that “art therapy has been understudied [...]
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For me, one of the best metaphors for PTSD is the astronomical findings of “black holes” — they are so powerful that they suck up the light around them, so one can only infer their existence. For the most part, talk therapy is not effective with PTSD. The traumatized person much prefers to avoid talking [...]
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I would suggest that the alleged 15% risk of developing PTSD after a heart attack is a bit low and a blt misleading. Trauma essentially runs on a continuum, and heart attacks can run from mild to severe (and 50% of folks don’t even survive them.) Even a “mild” heart attack is traumatizing. Just because [...]
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