Acute stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that has similar characteristics to post traumatic stress disorder. It occurs after the person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which there was a risk of death or serious injury with a threat to the physical integrity of the individual or others, and in which the reaction of the individual contained intense fear.
In the acute stress disorder the person presents at least 3 of the following symptoms:
- Tingling sensation
- Emotional removal or lack of emotional response
- Reduced awareness of the environment
- A sense of frustration (the person feels that things around him are false) or depersonalization (the person feels distracted by himself and observes the events from the outside)
- The individual cannot recall an important aspect of the event
- The person experiences the event again through images, thoughts, nightmares, annoyance to anything that reminisces
- The person avoids the stimuli that cause him to recover the wound
- Severe symptoms of anxiety or increased excitability (e.g. difficulty in sleeping, kinetic anxiety)
The disorder adversely affects the professional, social and personal life of the individual.
This disorder lasts for at least 2 days and not more than 4 weeks. If the duration is longer, then the diagnosis alters in post traumatic stress disorder.
In order to diagnose this disorder, the resulting physiological reactions should not be the result of the action of a substance (e.g. narcotics) or a genetic state. This disorder may "predict" post traumatic stress disorder. Early diagnosis and intervention in acute anxiety disorder can prevent the onset of post traumatic stress disorder.
All Programs of “Veresies” Clinic are approved and supervised by the Cyprus National Addictions Authority (CNAA).
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