Excerpt from Term Paper :

Apparent health can be generally positive or negative; in spite of how it links with the real health; it may be significant to comprehend its function in certain kinds of psychopathology. Negatively apparent health has been anticipated to symbolize a cognitive risk factor for panic disorder (PD), detached from elevated anxiety feeling. As a result, PD may be more likely to take place on a background of negative perceptions of one's health. A negatively perceived health may also have predictive implications for PD patients, bearing in mind that negatively perceived health has been found to be a considerable predictor of mortality in general and that individuals with panic-like anxiety indications, panic attacks, and PD have elevated mortality rates, mostly due to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular illnesses (Starcevick, Berle, Fenech, Milicevic, Lamplugh and Hannan, 2009).

Psychological

Studies have suggested that panic attacks (PA) are widespread and connected with an augmented occurrence of mental disorders and inferior quality of life, and may be an indicator of severe psychopathology. These studies have suggested that individuals with panic disorder have an overstated, perhaps genetically founded, neurobiological reaction to demanding life events. A person's normal alarm system, its fight or flight reaction, tends to go off as if the body is in serious danger even when it isn't. An original panic attack may turn out to be linked with the upsetting feelings that accompanied it, leading to chronic panic disorder, or recurrent fear of having future panic attacks. The majority of people with panic disorder are found to have experienced troubles with anxiety or panic even as kids (Kinley, Cox, Clara, Goodwin and Sareen, 2009).

Social

Panic disorder is more widespread in people with low educational attainment. For instance, people with less than twelve years of education are five times more probable to have a panic attack and more than ten times more likely to have panic disorder than individuals with more than sixteen years of education. Nevertheless, the power of this finding concerning education contrasts noticeably with another variable connected to general socio-economic standing: earnings. Large dissimilarities in earnings, such as making less than $20,000 compared with more than $70-000 per year, were linked with only small, non-important differences in occurrence rates (Eaton, Kessler, Wittchen and Magee, 1994).

Stressful life dealings activate a person's biological and psychological vulnerabilities to anxiety. The majority are interpersonal in nature, like marriage, divorce, troubles at work or death of a loved one. A few might be physical, such as an injury or illness. Social pressures, possibly to do extremely well in school, might also supply adequate stress to produce anxiety. The same stressors can cause physical responses such as headaches or hypertension and emotional reactions such as panic attacks. The exacting manner that one responds to stress seems to run in families (Durand and Barlow, 2010).

Cultural

Culture comes into play by affecting the feelings that are the center of concern and by influencing the types of disastrous appraisals probable to take place. Panic disorder patients experience fear following the disastrous misunderstanding of certain bodily feelings, particularly orthostatic dizziness. Yet, the foundation for their misunderstanding often lies in folk makeup. This process is the same across cultures, disastrous misinterpretation of certain bodily sensations, but the substance varies (McNally, 2008).

Panic disorder is known to exist worldwide, even though its expression may differ from place to place. Somatic indications of anxiety may be highlighted in Third World cultures. Subjective approaches of fear or anguish may not be part of the cultural idiom; that is, people do not attend to these feelings and do not account them, centering mainly on bodily feelings. There are a lot of cultures that conceptualize their bodies as having vessels that carry blood and wind, and the most significant of these vessels are positioned in the limbs and neck. Stress and disease...

If the stress becomes to harsh, according to these cultures, the blood vessels in the neck may rupture as wind tries to move upward toward the head, which may then result in death (Durand and Barlow, 2010).

If individuals in these cultures undergo anxiety and panic attacks with associated dizziness and feelings of faintness, their concentration rapidly turns to their neck and troubles with too much wind and any repetition of these symptoms can produce panic attacks. Therefore, individuals from these cultures come to clinics complaining of sore neck or dizziness when standing up, which is a good sign that they have typical cases of panic disorder that they are describing according to the viewpoints and expressions of their cultures. If mental health professionals are not aware of these things, these people might be misdiagnosed and improperly treated (Durand and Barlow, 2010).

Panic Attack Disorder with Agoraphobia

Panic attack disorder with agoraphobia is a disorder in which people experience harsh unforeseen panic attacks. They often believe they are dying or otherwise losing control. For the reason that they never know when an attack might take place, they develop agoraphobia, or fear and evasion of circumstances in which they would feel insecure in the event of a panic attack or indications (Durand and Barlow, 2010). Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia according to the DSM-IV-TR is anxiety about being in places or circumstances from which flight might be hard or awkward or in which aid may not be obtainable in the event of having an unforeseen or situationally predisposed panic attack or panic-like indications. Agoraphobic worries characteristically entail distinguishing bunches of circumstances that comprise being outside the home alone; being in a crowd, or standing in a line; being on a bridge; and traveling in a bus, train, or fcar. These circumstances are evaded or else are suffered with marked anguish or with anxiety about having a panic attack or panic-like indications, or necessitate the attendance of a friend (Wittchen, Gloster, Beesdo-Baum, Fava and Craske (2010).

Panic Attack Disorder without Agoraphobia

The main trait of Panic Disorder without Agoraphobia is unforeseen and recurring panic attacks, without agoraphobia. The occurrence and harshness of these unforeseen and recurrent attacks differ extensively from individual to individual. At times attacks occur ever day, then for a time once ever few months. Some attacks may be lengthy and some may be short one never knows. These attacks come whenever they want to, giving a person immense uneasiness about the next attack. In order for Panic Disorder without Agoraphobia to be diagnosed, a person must have recurring panic attacks in irregular situations, combined with either unending concern about the attacks, fear of their implications or a serious alteration in behavior as a consequence of the attacks. it's also significant that the attacks take place in situations in which they are inconsistent to the situation at hand (Kikuchi, Komuro, Oka, Kidani, Hanaoka and Koshino, 2005).

Treatment

Just like with most psychiatric illnesses, panic disorder is best treated with both psychotherapy and anti-anxiety medications. There are quantities of kinds of psychotherapy appropriate for the treatment of panic disorder. These comprise relaxation therapy, behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Medications are utilized to assist psychotherapy as a main kind of treatment. Medications such as sedatives and antidepressants are utilized in this setting to decrease the incidence and harshness of panic attacks. The most frequently utilized sedatives are the benzodiazepines such as diazepam; but their use beyond four to six weeks is disheartened with the appearance of dependence beyond this period. The most frequently utilized antidepressant for this condition is the SSRI's such as flluoxetine and sertraline. Antidepressant medications will typically necessitate three months of therapy to attain sufficient effect, but have the benefit that they do not bring on patient dependence. Another class of drugs frequently utilized for panic disorder is the beta-blockers. These drugs block the body's reaction to anxiety, stopping the incidence of palpitations, sweating and tremor in the event of a panic attack. They can also be taken in expectancy of stressful circumstances to lessen the effect of anxiety on the body (Panic Disorder, with or Without Agoraphobia, 2006).

Antidepressants have a few drawbacks in that they typically take several weeks to work, and they may get rid of panic attacks without influencing the even more disabling and demoralizing conditioned terror of panic attacks. About a third of people cannot endure the side effects of the tricyclics; particularly dry mouth, augmented heart rate, and dizziness. These indications are particularly troublesome for a person who links extraordinary physical feelings with the beginning of panic. SSRI's have an advantage here, for the reason that their side effects are less and milder. Benzodiazepines also have a small number of side effects, and not like antidepressants, they start to work right away, but a lot of people find it hard to stop taking them because of dependence and removal indications. Benzodiazepines are also utilized to treat generalized anxiety, and they may offer relief from conditioned…