June designated as PTSD Awareness month

By Lauren Weinand, M.D.

Presented by Compass Health Network

An increased recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder has entered the American lexicon. Often associated with military veterans, the disease can affect anyone who has lived through a traumatic event.

June, designated as PTSD Awareness Month, and more specifically June 27, PTSD Awareness Day, provide perfect platforms to talk more about the disorder. 

PTSD affects between 11 and 30 percent of all veterans, depending on the war in which they served. Civilians also live with the disease with an estimated 10 percent of females and four percent of males dealing with the disorder.

PTSD is characterized by re-experiencing a traumatic event, as well as hypervigilance and avoidance of reminders. These triggering occurrences often involve seeing or living through a serious injury, death, or potentially life-threatening experience.

But anything beyond a person’s ability to cope can lead to the disease. While witnessing bloodshed in war might provide an obvious example, sexual assault or abuse, physical abuse, living through a natural disaster, being in a bad car accident or countless other experiences might result in PTSD. It’s impossible to predict who is more susceptible.

Additional symptoms of PTSD include negative changes in mood and thinking. Symptoms might appear immediately after an event or years later. They affect a person’s job performance, relationships, and daily life.

A health care professional such as a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, or family doctor typically diagnoses a person with PTSD if symptoms last longer than a month. Any person can develop the disease and seeking treatment provides the best chance of dealing positively to it or being healed. 

Because veterans’ experiences with PTSD are unique, it might serve a veteran best to utilize services through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Individual and group therapy services might be available at your local VA facility. Veterans can learn from each other’s experiences of behavioral health conditions during group therapy. Couples and family therapy services are also often offered to help bring military families closer together.

If you believe you or somebody else you know might have PTSD, visit your doctor or a behavioral health specialist. He or she will take a full medical history, and let you know if you have the disease, or are at risk of developing it. From there, you and your provider can work on a program that best serves your health needs.

Compass Health Network in El Dorado Springs provides dental and behavioral health care services and accepts most private insurance plans, along with Medicare and Medicaid. Compass Health Network also offers a cost-effective, income-based fee scale for those who qualify. To make an appointment call 844-853-8937.