Handbook of Legal Medicine — E-Books	Consulting Services — Contact Us	Members Log-in — Subscription Services	Free E-Mail Subscription Join our free monthly newsletter.	Research — Canadian Malpractice	Guest Index of Articles and Newsletters
Search the full text articles and newsletters. Electronic Handbook of Legal Medicine The Web Browse the Keyword Map of Medlit.info - KwMap.net

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) 1993-4 Full text articles and references are available by subscription. Criteria (adapted from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition [DSM-IV]): The person has undergone an event which involved a threat to physical integrity and has responded with horror or helplessness. For more than a month, the event is persistently re-experienced by recollections, dreams, reliving, or by intense distress or physiological reaction to reminders of the trauma (cues). There is persistent avoidance of cues; diminished interest, intimacy, range of emotions, recall of event details; a sense of a foreshortened future. Arousal is increased - sleep disturbance, irritability/anger, lack of concentration, hypervigilance, readily startled. There is significant distress or impaired functioning, particularly social or occupational. Psychophysiological testing Blood-pressure, heart-rate, intensity of blinking, skin-conductivity and muscle electrical activity could add some objectivity to what are otherwise subjective criteria[1]. The admissibility of such evidence was untested at the time of writing (1993). Client Characteristics 10% of MVA victims with multiple injuries or whiplash developed post traumatic stress disorder[2]. Sufferers characteristically had horrific memories, did not have a neurotic predisposition. Mental state at a year could be predicted at three months. Epilepsy A minority of patients with PTSD flashbacks appear to be suffering from a form of temporal lobe epilepsy[3], as suggested by electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns and dramatic response to antiepileptic medication. Treatment The same authors desensitised the nonepileptics in a novel way - they made an audiotape of a session in which the patient relived the traumatic event, then had the patient replay it repeatedly until it became boring. GLOSSARY: Click on the appropriate letter [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

Problems/Comments regarding this website?