Driver's ed to cope with PTSD

This is an excellent article about the challenges people with PTSD face while driving, and what one VA hospital is doing to help:

Palo Alto's VA Hospital offers driver's ed to cope with PTSD

PTSD in Firefighters, First Responders & Other Rescuers

Two recent news stories highlight the oft-forgotten sufferers of PTSD: First responders, firefighters and other rescue workers.

First up, an NPR article about how the constant threat of working as a first responder or other rescue worker can build up until PTSD symptoms develop.

"Little by little, it just started to build, and then one day, the slideshow that was all these events started running in my head and I couldn't control it," Michael Ferrara told NPR. It all came to a head for him when a friend of his was killed while on duty.

According to NPR (itself covering a story from Outside magazine), PTSD often goes undiagnosed in these occupations because the men who fill these jobs do not like to admit when they are in emotional pain.

But better understanding of PTSD allows both managers and rescue workers to not only deal with their symptoms better, but to recognize them when they first show up.

An Ontario-based newspaper called Cottage Country Now also discusses how volunteer firefighters can be ill-equipped to deal with the trauma of their jobs. Part of this comes from constantly working with survivors -- or seeing those who did not survive. "You're seeing people on the worse day of their life; their house burnt down, they had a heart attack, something bad happened," researcher Brad Campbell told the paper. Campbell's study is one of the first major studies of PTSD in firefighters.

Research: Stress (and its damage) Can Be Passed on Genetically

According to new research, some of the effects of PTSD could possibly be passed on to your offspring, or even make your children more likely to develop PTSD if they encounter their own traumatic events. 

A study of Holocaust survivors found that their children were more susceptible to PTSD because the bodies of both parents and children generated lower levels of cortisol, a hormone that helps shut down the stress response.

The Independent has much more on this research in a recent article:

Stressed out? It could be in your genes

How children react to parents with PTSD

One family member's PTSD can have terrible effects on the rest of the family, especially when it's a parent suffering.

According to an article from the National Center for PTSD, the symptoms of PTSD "can be frightening not only for the individual experiencing them but also for the children who witness them."

Children often react to PTSD in three common ways: by behaving like their PTSDer parent (the "over-identified child"); by trying to fill the adult's normal role in the family (the "rescuer child"); or by becoming emotionally uninvolved.

All of these responses can pose problems for a child later in life. And in fact, the children can, themselves, develop their own cases of PTSD, a condition known as "intergenerational transmission of trauma."

But that doesn't mean the situation is hopeless for families. According to the article, simply explaining to a child why a parent has been traumatized (without going in graphic detail) can go a long way toward alleviating the stress a child feels.

Treatment/therapy as a family is also often a valuable asset and tool.

If anyone in your family is suffering from PTSD, this article by Jennifer L. Price, PhD, is essential reading:

When a Child's Parent Has PTSD - National Center for PTSD

The primary, secondary and tertiary effects of PTSD

Bob Trowbridge's article "Secondary and tertiary effects of post-traumatic stress related to war" for Helium (a health & fitness site) does much to illustrate the pains and symptoms of PTSD.

Trowbridge (a spiritual counselor, not a therapist) breaks it down like this:

Primary effects:
Nightmares
Flashbacks
Hypersensitivity
High blood pressure and other physical symptoms
Paranoia
Withdrawal from society

Secondary effects:
The effect on friends and family
The potential for violence

Tertiary effects:
Difficulty rejoining society
Unemployment
Homelessness
Alcohol and drug abuse
Inability to perform in social situations

Trowbridge points out that this three-tiered breakdown of effects is completely artificial. In other words, it's not a diagnostic tool, just a way for us to look at symptom/effects in meaningful clumps that tell a story of the problems PTSDers encounter.

And hopefully, once we understand, proper treatment can begin.

Worth a read.

Cops get tips for contacts with persons suffering PTSD

Cops in Augusta, Georgia, recently got a class on how to effectively deal with people who have PTSD.

The article covering the class, and possibly the class itself, focuses too much on veterans, ignoring the fact that others (cops included) can also get PTSD. But the advice is good:

"To help veterans focus, officers are encouraged to speak slowly, maintain eye contact and clearly explain their purpose for being there. They also should ask a person what he sees and hears to determine whether he is disassociating or not."

Here's an interesting parallel the author missed, while discussing why cops need to learn how to manage situations with people with PTSD: "Officers depend on their own hyper-vigilance to survive a shift and rolling up on a jumpy, aggressive person does not bode well." Hyper-vigilance happens to be one of the symptoms of PTSD.

Ga. cops get tips for contacts with persons suffering PTSD