Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Case Study

Posttraumatic stress disorder, otherwise known as PTSD, is a psychological disorder that develops through exposure to a traumatic event, a severely oppressive situation, cruel abuse, or a natural or an unnatural disaster. Symptoms include anxiety, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, nightmares, anger and irritability. Accompanying, are increased heart rate and blood pressure, as well as heightened arousal. Nearly half of all patients diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder also suffer from major depressive disorder, known as MDD. Although there are a variety of differing treatment options used to treat posttraumatic stress disorder and/or major depressive disorder, one of the most effective treatments is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), sometimes …show more content…
Students of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences examined the effectiveness of electroconvulsive shocks on the acoustic startle response using the inescapable tailshock rat model of traumatic stress to gain acumen into the probable effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Therefore, hypothesizing that the shock therapy will alleviate the acoustic startle response in rats with posttraumatic stress disorder. The physiological and behavioral changes associated with stress in this model coincide closely to those seen in humans with posttraumatic stress disorder. The subjects were 64 male Sprague-Dawley rats. The experiment followed a standard two-by-two design. Rats were divided into four groups of sixteen each. The experimental groups consisted: stress + ECS (n=16), stress-only (n=16), ECS (n=16), and control group (n=16). Hence, the independent variables are the electroconvulsive shock and the stress, and the dependent variable will be each group’s response to the electroconvulsive shock and stress as it relates to their acoustic startle