What is PTS and PTSD

PTS is Post Traumatic Stress and PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Keeping in mind I am not a professional or expert in the field, and I am going by what I am being told, the easy way of explaining the meaning and difference of both is this:

PTS is the cause of the problem and PTSD is the diagnosis and treatment of the problem. While they both are commonly associated with active service or veterans of the Armed Services, anyone can experience PTS or be diagnosed with PTSD. For now, most of what I want to talk about, and most of what is available for treatment to date, has to do with what effects the active members and veterans of the Armed Services. At times examples of events effecting the public will also be listed. Also, just like tobacco, secondary PTS can effect the family and close friends of someone experiencing PTSD, but so far as I know, nothing is really being done on a large scale treatment that is available for them yet. This is called STSD.

Post means after, which follows the event or combinations of events. These events could have taken place recently, such as in Iraq or far in the past, such as during the Vietnam era. They also can be a combination of events, say during the active service of a veteran and then during a natural disaster, combining different events into one person's mind. But in the long run, it starts with a life threatening event such as being in a combat zone, and then can be exasperated by follow up events.

Traumatic means very, very disturbing. This can be life threatening events, or the fear of being in a life threatening event such as combat. In the public role, such events can be a person experiencing a bad hurricane, or a tornado, a fire, or a flood, which they thought something bad, like the house they are in blowing away. It can also be a really bad accident which they almost died in. All of these examples can be considered as traumatic along with many other types of events.

Stress is the reaction to the event, such as your heart beating faster, headaches, thoughts of loosing control of a situation, just about anything that is not normal to your body's regular motion or action.

Disorder simply means something that is not right, or out of order.

These may seem like such a simple explanation, but the effects on a person is not as simple. They can be held at bay for decades at a time, such as with a Vietnam Veteran, coming out and effecting their life 40 years later. This also has to do with the denial of having PTSD, thinking you have it under control, not needing any help. It can be as recent as our brothers and sisters are experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan now. What makes it even worse is there are many, many different symptoms that can add up to PTSD but can be overlooked if not drawn together into a single diagnosis. While a veteran could have experienced many violent and disturbing events during a single tour of duty, so can the public by experiencing gang shootings, armed robberies, or natural events. This is important to remember so you should never think just because you did not serve in combat you can not have PTSD.

Diagnostic Criteria for PTSD can, at times, be easy or at times be complicated. There are several events and symptoms that need to be present to separate a diagnosis of PTSD from other disorders that can be confused as PTSD, but stand alone. The event or events must have been experienced, but not all of the symptoms, just most of the symptoms are being experienced.

The first criteria is the event.
The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both the following were present:
A) Experienced, witnessed or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual, threatened or conceived the possibility of death or serious injury, or the threat of the physical integrity of their self or others.
B) The person's response involved experiencing intense fear, helplessness or horror/horrific consequences.

The first symptom is listed as recollection of the event in some fashion, such as recurrent dreams, images, thoughts or perception. These are commonly referred to as flashbacks, but that is not always the case. They can be physiological reactivity to exposure of internal or external causes that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

Next is the persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event, which includes numbing of general responsiveness not general present before the trauma. A combination of 3 or more of these symptoms are expected to be present:
This can include efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations associated with the event. This is why many vets do not like to speak about their experiences to others.
They can also avoid activities, places or people that will arouse recollections of the event.
They can have the inability to recall an important aspect of the event, even though the event itself is recalled.
Diminished interest or participation in significant activities is also a symptom that can be present.
Feeling detachment or estrangement from others is common.
Restricted range of affection, such as showing loving or caring feelings is common.
And the final of the common responses, even though these are not all of the responses looked for, is a sense of foreshortened future, an example would be the veteran or person does not expect to have a full career, marriage, children, or normal life span.

Physical symptoms are also indication of PTSD, with the combination of at least 2 of the following:
Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
Irritability or outburst of anger.
Difficulty concentrating.
Hypervigilance or Paranoia.
Exaggerated startle response, reaction to loud noises or sudden awareness of someones presence.

The above listed symptoms, psychological or physical is being experienced longer than one month and the disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

Diagnosing the disorder also must be categorically classified as being:
Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months
Chronic: if duration of symptoms are 3 months or more
and if,
Delayed Onset: if onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the stressor/event or combination of events.


In my next post, I will start to explain some of the symptoms and effects that make living with PTSD can have on the veteran or a person living with STSD.