What Is the Acute Stress Reaction?

Acute stress reaction, or ASD, is a transient mental disorder that occurs within minutes or hours after a severe, severe traumatic event, and typically occurs within a few days or a week. Remission, no longer than 1 month. ASD can occur at all ages, and it is more common in young adults. There is no significant difference in the incidence of men and women. Clinically, it mainly manifests as psychomotor excitement or psychomotor depression or even stiffness with a strong fear experience. Good, relieved completely.

Basic Information

nickname

Acute stress disorder

English name

acute situational reaction

English alias

acute stress reaction, ASD

Visiting department

Internal medicine

Multiple groups

Young adults

Common causes

Sudden, severe traumatic event

Common symptoms

In addition to the initial dazed state, there are depression, anxiety, anger, despair, hyperactivity, withdrawal, often tachycardia, sweating, and red cheek

Causes of acute stress response

A sudden, severe traumatic event is the direct cause of ASD. The common traumatic events are as follows:

Serious life event

Such as severe traffic accidents, sudden deaths of loved ones (especially spouses or children), broken marriages, unmarried pregnancy, abandoned, raped, cancer, blindness or disfigurement, long-term relationship between husband and wife, mother-in-law, refugees moving to another country , Traumatic experiences like gangster attacks, looting of family property, etc.

2. Major natural disasters

Such as suffering from severe floods, earthquakes, fires, storms, mudslides and other disasters that seriously threaten the safety of life and cause huge losses of property.

3. war

Such as veterans who have experienced terrible wars, individuals who have lost loved ones or loved ones during the war, frontline soldiers who have been significantly disabled or have lost the ability to take care of themselves due to the war.

4. Isolated state

Mental disorders can also occur if they have long been detained in a concentration camp and subjected to torture.

Only a small number of individuals who have experienced the above-mentioned traumatic events will have ASD. It can be seen that the occurrence of ASD is also related to the individual's biological foundation, psychological capacity, and the environment before and after the trauma.

Clinical manifestations of acute stress response

1. The core symptoms-traumatic recurrence experience, avoidance and numbness, high alertness

If the situation of a traumatic event or the psychological feelings at that time automatically and repeatedly appear in consciousness or dreams, any situation related to the traumatic experience can be induced, so the patient avoids various people or things related to the traumatic, and the emotion can be expressed as numbness State, there are often autonomic symptoms such as tachycardia, sweating, and facial redness.

2. Separation symptoms

Such as numbness, slow emotional response, decreased consciousness clarity, unrealism, separated forgetting, disintegration of personality or disintegration of reality.

3. General performance

After experiencing traumatic events, he was at a loss, noticed narrowness, could not understand external stimuli, misorientation, and even reached the level of detached rigidity, or manifested as escape, wandering, and emotional outburst.

4. Psychotic symptoms

In some patients, some patients may experience loose associations of thoughts, hallucinations of fragmentation, delusions, severe anxiety and depression, and reach the level of mental illness.

Diagnosis of acute stress response

The diagnosis of ASD is mainly based on clinical characteristics, laboratory and other auxiliary examinations have no certain diagnostic criteria. Key points for the diagnosis of ASD in ICD-10: There must be a clear time relationship between the appearance of unusual stressors and the occurrence of symptoms. Even if symptoms do not appear immediately, they usually appear within minutes. In addition, ASD symptoms are often mixed and changing clinical phases. In addition to the dazed state at the initial stage, there may also be depression, anxiety, anger, despair, hyperactivity, and withdrawal, without any type of symptoms continuing to prevail.

Acute Stress Response Therapy

Psychotherapy is preferred for the treatment of ASD. Drug therapy or psychotherapy combined with drug therapy is considered only in the following three cases:

1. Symptoms are severe, individual psychotherapy is ineffective or anxiety is particularly serious;

2. Depression in the past and effective for drug treatment;

3. Severe sleep disorders and poor psychological treatment.

Prognosis of acute stress response

The prognosis of this disease is good after timely treatment, and the mental state can completely return to normal. If the stress-eliminating symptoms can be quickly relieved within 2 to 3 days (often within a few hours), if the stressor persists or is irreversible, the symptoms generally begin to decrease after 2 to 3 days, usually within 1 Relieves within weeks.

Acute stress response prevention

The prevention of ASD mainly lies in cultivating healthy psychology, enhancing self-protection awareness and improving the ability to respond to stressful events at the same time. At the same time, professionals should provide crisis intervention as early as possible after traumatic events, provide a traumatic environment, and strengthen social support Can effectively prevent the occurrence of ASD.