The following are some of the anxiety disorders, which are commonly to be found in children and adolescents:
Children and adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder tend to be excessively anxious with the excellence of their performance in school or sporting events, even when they are not being evaluated. They also worry about punctuality, may be fanatical with concerns about disasters, tend to redo tasks if not perfect, and rely on others for endorsement and constant encouragement.
Separation anxiety disorder is diagnosed when a child exhibits abnormal anxiety about separation from home or the individual to whom he is most emotionally involved. In order to stamp it as a disorder, the problem must extend at least four weeks and cause significant suffering or disruption in performance.
Phobias diagnosed in children include specific phobias, or fears of certain stuff or places, or social phobia, fear of social circumstances. Specific phobias are quiet common in children and that they should not be diagnosed unless they obviously impede with the child’s performance (e.g., refusal to go outside due to the fear of encountering a dog). Social phobia is complicated diagnosis in children because they often do not have much control over their exposure to social situations. When a child is frequently having anxiety about communications with adults, social phobia is diagnosed. Children may express this phobia through clinging, crying and tantrums, “freezing,” or not speaking.
Children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show symptoms alike adults with this disorder, although compulsive behaviors in children can be confused with symptoms of attention deficit or, hyperactivity disorder. Some experts consider that OCD is commoner among children than asthma.OCD in children may be evident through a child’s obsession with lucky or unlucky numbers, having parents check to make sure things are clean, needing things to be arranged in a certain order, hoarding, or constantly asking for reassurance.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTTS) in a child may become apparent through his report of nightmares and repeating of the trauma through play.
Panic disorder is not very common in childhood and often first diagnosed in late adolescence.
Showing posts with label Anxiety disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anxiety disorder. Show all posts
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Types of anxiety and when treatment becomes necessary?
What are types of anxiety disorder commonly encountered?
The main types of anxiety disorders are the :
Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by at least six months of persistent and excessive anxiety and worry in an individual.
Panic disorder has features of recurrent, unexpected panic attacks and worries about having more.
Agoraphobia is the fear of being in places or circumstances where escape may be difficult or embarrassing. Agoraphobia is often associated with concerns about having a panic attack.
Phobias, which include specific phobias and social phobia, are diagnosed when clinically significant anxiety occurs upon exposure to the feared entity or circumstances, and this fear often leads to avoidance of the entity or circumstances.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by obsessions, which are interfering thoughts and impulses (e.g., thoughts about contamination) causing considerable anxiety, and compulsions, which are repetitive acts (e.g., excessive hand-washing) used to fight off that anxiety.
Post traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder involve the re-experiencing of an extremely traumatic event.
When medical treatment become necessary for anxiety?
Anxiety becomes a disorder when it seriously impairs your ability to work, love, or play. Too much anxiety also takes its toll on your body. These are some symptoms that spoil functioning and hint the need for treatment:
• You become exhausted or easily fatigued.
• You have trouble thinking through standard problems like how to sequence the responsibilities of the day.
• You are so tense that you can’t experience comfort, joy, or a sense of accomplishment.
• You engage in special rituals to fend off invasive thoughts or images.
• Your symptoms convince you that you’re dying or losing your mind.
• Preoccupation with anxiety impairs your productivity.
• You dread and avoid common social situations such as going out in public, with friends, or even to work.
• You are so much worried that it is difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep.
• Emotional tension percolates into your skeletal muscles, make you stiff, tense, and aching.
• You avoid everyday tasks and responsibilities out of fear of having a panic attack.
If you have trouble in performance, you will ultimately worry more, and a vicious cycle is set in motion. Treatment is essential to interrupt the cycle, provide hope, and restore functioning.
The main types of anxiety disorders are the :
Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by at least six months of persistent and excessive anxiety and worry in an individual.
Panic disorder has features of recurrent, unexpected panic attacks and worries about having more.
Agoraphobia is the fear of being in places or circumstances where escape may be difficult or embarrassing. Agoraphobia is often associated with concerns about having a panic attack.
Phobias, which include specific phobias and social phobia, are diagnosed when clinically significant anxiety occurs upon exposure to the feared entity or circumstances, and this fear often leads to avoidance of the entity or circumstances.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by obsessions, which are interfering thoughts and impulses (e.g., thoughts about contamination) causing considerable anxiety, and compulsions, which are repetitive acts (e.g., excessive hand-washing) used to fight off that anxiety.
Post traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder involve the re-experiencing of an extremely traumatic event.
When medical treatment become necessary for anxiety?
Anxiety becomes a disorder when it seriously impairs your ability to work, love, or play. Too much anxiety also takes its toll on your body. These are some symptoms that spoil functioning and hint the need for treatment:
• You become exhausted or easily fatigued.
• You have trouble thinking through standard problems like how to sequence the responsibilities of the day.
• You are so tense that you can’t experience comfort, joy, or a sense of accomplishment.
• You engage in special rituals to fend off invasive thoughts or images.
• Your symptoms convince you that you’re dying or losing your mind.
• Preoccupation with anxiety impairs your productivity.
• You dread and avoid common social situations such as going out in public, with friends, or even to work.
• You are so much worried that it is difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep.
• Emotional tension percolates into your skeletal muscles, make you stiff, tense, and aching.
• You avoid everyday tasks and responsibilities out of fear of having a panic attack.
If you have trouble in performance, you will ultimately worry more, and a vicious cycle is set in motion. Treatment is essential to interrupt the cycle, provide hope, and restore functioning.
Anxiety Disorder - Basic facts
What is anxiety and how is it different from fear?
Anxiety is sense of fear without a obvious threat. Whereas fear is a usual response to an apparent, truthful threat to your physical well-being, anxiety often feels abnormal and without use or function. Imagine while you are crossing a road and unexpectedly a car appears speeding in your way. You will most likely experience the following feelings of fear:
• Your heart beats faster
• Your breathing become hurried
• You may perspire
• Your mind focuses
• You mind and body become ready to take protective action
These reactions, which happen in a millisecond, will save you from hitting with car, and you should be grateful for your built-in alarm system.
Anxiety, conversely, feels more troublesome than supportive. Put side by side the logic and efficiency of the fear response to these common features of anxiety:
• You may not be able to identify why you’re afraid
• If you have a reason, it’s not a believable one (it may be illogical)
• The threat may be distant in the past or future
• The threat could be distant geographically
• When you don’t know why you are frightened, you feel a sense of apprehension
• Because the fear lacks focus, you have more difficulty finding a solution to end it.
Moreover, anxiety is vicious cycle. The more you notice yourself feeling anxious, the more anxious you may become.
What are the causes of anxiety?
Many factors contribute to anxiety, and several of them may be responsible in each particular case. Here’s a list of the causes most often related with the development of anxiety disorders:
Genes and anxiety.
Our genes are responsible for some of us up to be vulnerable to problems with anxiety. If a number of your close kin suffer from anxiety problems, you are at an enhanced risk for developing an anxiety disorder. In other words sensitive alarm system, you may inherit.
Anxiety results from early life experience.
Early life events and experiences can also make us more likely to develop problems, especially if these experiences are traumatic and leave an echoing alarm in our heads. Just seeing our parents respond to events with anxiety and worry may make it more likely that we will respond the same.
Anxiety arising out of experience later in life
Experiencing particularly upsetting events later in life can develop anxiety disorder over the short-run and, in some cases, for long period of time. Examples of this include the trauma caused by rape or war combat.
Our thought process is sometime responsible for our anxiety
Often, we are worried by our own thinking. Logical errors are common among people with anxiety problems, namely overestimating the danger in a situation and underestimating one’s ability to handle. Anxious people may always exaggerate the negative aspect of an event. They may have dilemma in sorting out what actually is unsafe in life.
Effect of drug and illness on anxiety
A variety of drugs, legal and illegal, set off the anxiety alarm, as do some medical or other psychiatric illnesses.
Dilemma within us as a cause of anxiety
Some of us become anxious when confronted with wearisome dilemmas—the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. Such a conflict may be based in unconscious alarms like disapproval by parents in childhood and that persist to impact us as adults. This kind of cause is referred to as “psychodynamic” because it addresses the conversations, or dynamics, that occur inside us.
Anxiety is sense of fear without a obvious threat. Whereas fear is a usual response to an apparent, truthful threat to your physical well-being, anxiety often feels abnormal and without use or function. Imagine while you are crossing a road and unexpectedly a car appears speeding in your way. You will most likely experience the following feelings of fear:
• Your heart beats faster
• Your breathing become hurried
• You may perspire
• Your mind focuses
• You mind and body become ready to take protective action
These reactions, which happen in a millisecond, will save you from hitting with car, and you should be grateful for your built-in alarm system.
Anxiety, conversely, feels more troublesome than supportive. Put side by side the logic and efficiency of the fear response to these common features of anxiety:
• You may not be able to identify why you’re afraid
• If you have a reason, it’s not a believable one (it may be illogical)
• The threat may be distant in the past or future
• The threat could be distant geographically
• When you don’t know why you are frightened, you feel a sense of apprehension
• Because the fear lacks focus, you have more difficulty finding a solution to end it.
Moreover, anxiety is vicious cycle. The more you notice yourself feeling anxious, the more anxious you may become.
What are the causes of anxiety?
Many factors contribute to anxiety, and several of them may be responsible in each particular case. Here’s a list of the causes most often related with the development of anxiety disorders:
Genes and anxiety.
Our genes are responsible for some of us up to be vulnerable to problems with anxiety. If a number of your close kin suffer from anxiety problems, you are at an enhanced risk for developing an anxiety disorder. In other words sensitive alarm system, you may inherit.
Anxiety results from early life experience.
Early life events and experiences can also make us more likely to develop problems, especially if these experiences are traumatic and leave an echoing alarm in our heads. Just seeing our parents respond to events with anxiety and worry may make it more likely that we will respond the same.
Anxiety arising out of experience later in life
Experiencing particularly upsetting events later in life can develop anxiety disorder over the short-run and, in some cases, for long period of time. Examples of this include the trauma caused by rape or war combat.
Our thought process is sometime responsible for our anxiety
Often, we are worried by our own thinking. Logical errors are common among people with anxiety problems, namely overestimating the danger in a situation and underestimating one’s ability to handle. Anxious people may always exaggerate the negative aspect of an event. They may have dilemma in sorting out what actually is unsafe in life.
Effect of drug and illness on anxiety
A variety of drugs, legal and illegal, set off the anxiety alarm, as do some medical or other psychiatric illnesses.
Dilemma within us as a cause of anxiety
Some of us become anxious when confronted with wearisome dilemmas—the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. Such a conflict may be based in unconscious alarms like disapproval by parents in childhood and that persist to impact us as adults. This kind of cause is referred to as “psychodynamic” because it addresses the conversations, or dynamics, that occur inside us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)