Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay.
Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay. “Up to 65 per cent of Australians are likely to
experience or witness an event which threatens their life or safety” (19). Quite often trauma
victims can recover by their own. However, with others it may have a negative reaction to a
traumatic event which can then lead to an illness called Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) (16).
This disorder is associated with mental and physical conditions combined thus causing
reductions in a person’s quality of life and as a consequence includes economic burdens
(12). (3) Due to the result of all the accumulating evidence, Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual – fifth edition (DSM-5) has marked and modified goals and criteria for ASD. Under
new criteria, ASD diagnosis will no longer predict chronic Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD). It will help to identify more severely affected survivors of trauma prior a diagnosis
of PTSD can be made. Furthermore, the acuity people will perhaps get benefit from earlier
interventions and short-term rehabilitation programs that are the great help in the recovery
process. Early rehabilitation interventions, including self-care strategy, thought control
strategy, and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) would speed up recovery and prevent
chronic longer term problems. Besides that, family members, clinicians, and social support
networks play an important role in support mechanism for recovery process. Inaddition,
some potential barriers are also discussed in predicting of new problems and relapse which
may occur in order to manage them.Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay.ORDER A
PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HEREPotential recoveryAccording to (2) DSM-5 in 2013, ASD
was relocated in Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders. ASD is a psychological and
physical shock which usually appears in response to a traumatic event in a person’s life. The
acutely traumatized person can be directly exposed to or be the witness of a traumatic
events such as serious accident (21%), physical assault (19%), rape or witnessing a mass
shooting (50%) or natural disaster (10%)(19). (9) Symptoms of ASD occur immediately
right after the trauma, and it lasts for more than 2 days and less than 1 month (4). The
victim usually suffers from anxiety, distress, intense fear, helplessness, avoidance
behaviours or re-experience the event (16). (15) It has been recorded that 15% to 45% of
children and adolescents directly experience to at least one traumatic event. There is no
statistics of how many distressed people can fully recover due to these traumas; however in
many studies it has been confirmed that ASD patients can have a full recovery under
appropriate treatments. This study strongly emphasis on ASD rehabilitation rather than
attempting to predict subsequent PTSD. Due to ASD timeframe is short, many victims are
usually been ignored. Particularly, children and adolescent are in high risk of developing

PTSD which leads to long-term psychological sequel in their life and causes a burden on
health care systems. Therefore, (15) highlighted that recognizing ASD symptoms is an
important step in toward enhancing intervention in the right time and speed up the
recovery process. Additionally, with a formal diagnosis, it will allow highly distressed
people to claim compensations from the health care service and payment for recovery
treatment (4). In order to get appropriate diagnosis and early intervention, physicians play
a critical role for assessments and monitoring all physical and psychological
symptoms.Recovery processWhenever a referral from a physician has been made, the
traumatized patients will go through a rehabilitation process. This process needs self-care
strategy, thought control strategy, and CBT to support patients’ recovery and to decrease
the future incidence of PTSD. (7) With self-care strategies, it focuses on personal strengths
and their own judgment. Whether any kind of psychotherapies are provided to traumatic
people, they should rely on their own recovery ability first. Without their own effort, all the
supports will become ineffective. Traumatic patients, then, will receive reassurance and
support, such as simple information and advices on self-care to overcome the normal
recovery process. However, if the person cannot scope with these extremely severe events,
and express a prolonged distress, or interfere with daily activities, they will need to be
referral to another level of psychotherapy.Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation
Essay.Currently, it has been found that thought control strategy is an acceptable strategy for
managing trauma related distress in the short term rehabilitation. Use of thought control
strategy will aim to reduce the emotional distress by sharing the traumatic stories in the
unforgettable period of time (14). There are four components (worry, distraction, social
element and re-appraisal) which are the most commonly used to focus on helping the
patient to normalize reactions to trauma (22). The first being Worry/Stress, it is best trying
to get the patient to not concentrate on the stressful thought itself. Encouraging the patient
to try and replace worry or stress with other day to day concerns that may hold a more
minor bearing. The second is distraction. Finding a healthy distraction could be simple as
think about things that provide a positive feeling or immerse the patient in an activity that
is pleasurable. This will stop the patient concentrating on the traumatic event and allow
them to go about a daily routine. The third would be social elements that could help. This
could be asking or speaking with friends about their thoughts and how they have dealt with
such events in their lives. Asking about what worked for them or what may have helped
them avoid concentrating on the stressful event. This would be discussed fully so that the
patient could reflect and understand how this could apply to their situation. The fourth is
re-appraisal, trying and interpreting their feelings and understanding why these things are
affecting them emotionally and rationalize their reactions to these feelings. From here they
should challenge the validity of their emotions and feelings in order to control positive or
negative feelings.If these self-care strategy and thought control strategy still have not
worked well for recovery, CBT would be the next step of treatment in rehabilitation. (12)
CBT will be given in five therapy sessions this comprising prolonged exposure (PE) and
cognitive restructuring (CR). (12) found that these sessions provide brief forms of
treatment in reducing acute symptoms of ASD in the initial month after trauma exposure.
(8) PE focuses in emotional processing of thoughts. It helps interrupt and reserve recovery

process by blocking cognitive and behavioral avoidance. This is accomplished through in
vivo and imaginal expose. Vivo exposure involves repeatedly activities and situations that
are avoided because of trauma. Overtime, the patient can reduce distressing emotion and
fear. Then, they can cope effectively through these distresses. Imaginal exposure is related
to repeatedly describe the event aloud in details, then recording. After that, they listen to
their record in order to help them to realize their coping skill.Following initial assessment,
patients were informed that they would be reassessed after 6 weeksSupport
mechanismBesides psychotherapy in rehabilitation process and early supportive care
structure being delivered is an important step which supports the recovery process. Its
result last long in reductions of ASD symptoms. Supportive care deliverers are family
members, physician or social support network will help the traumatic patient go though the
acute phase. (17on) In most cases, family members usually ask for advices on how to help
their love in stressful situation. This will let the family to be able to utilize a communal
experience in order to enhance the therapeutic growths. The use of positive family
members has also been shown effectively assisted their traumatic member to manage their
stressful conditions. They provide support, love and reinforce coping strategy with the
trauma. The individual does not feel isolated, but also they feel warm and being caring. The
individual, therefore, can describe what happened and how they response though this hard
time.However in some cases family sometimes is not enough to support traumatic patients.
If the trauma patients and their family feel unable to cope with this traumatic event, they
can seek professional help from a physician such as an Australian Psychological Society
(APS) psychologist. An APS psychologist will help the severe distress people to understand
and manage the symptoms associated with the trauma. An APS psychologist would develop
effective coping strategies for affected individual as well as their family to support the
recovery process (18). If not, traumatic people also seek help from social support network
such as Beyondblue, Sane or Mental Health organizations. Beyondblue is a support service
designed to support, give advice and create actions. Whatever the situation is, Beyondblue
always listens to their distress stories and share their misfortune. Beyondblue members can
really help patients come to terms with their illness and help them to move forward (23).
Similarly, The Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health is a not-for-profit
organization which its aim to reduce the impact of trauma causing to the victims. They
connect the capability of individual’s family with their organizations within the community.
Therefore, they can understand about the traumatic victims, then, help them to prevent and
recover from the adverse mental health effects of trauma.Barrier : wrong diagnosis,
overwhelm with treatment, comorbid psychiatric disordersDue to a shorten timeframe of
ASD, there appear some barriers which prevent the recovery process such as late diagnosis,
overwhelmed treatments. Besides that some will subsequently develop comorbid
psychiatric disorders. In case of traumatic events happen, the victims are late identified.
Then, they will receive some simple advices how to overcome that situations. They are
supposed to recover on their own. However, there are still significant people who cannot go
through this recovery process by themselves. They need help from physicians to be
assessed in order to receive a formal diagnosis. This process somehow is taken time which
lead to a late diagnosis. If this is too late for appropriate treatment of stress disorder, it will

develop further into PTSD. Furthermore, without this proper diagnosis, traumatic patients
will not get the benefit from standard rehabilitation treatments (4). This problem can be
predicted by the role of physicians who can manage clinical judgments in order to give their
patient an early diagnosis.Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay.For those patients
who have received treatments within hours or days after an acute trauma incident, they
sometime do not response well to treatment plan due to overwhelm of different
interventions. They will present a psychosocial and environment difficulties related to
problems such as agitation, emotional pain, and dissociation. Quickly treatment but also
slowly explanation and monitoring the response from patients will enhance effective
support to recovery process. With patients that respond positively and appear to be
recovered from ASD, they sometimes sudden relapse when new event happen to their life.
They suffer from fear about safety for themselves as well as their family. The relapse can be
recognized by close family members who help the patients to report it to physician in order
to get continual treatment (17).Acute Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay.Treatment of
ASD is usually focused on its specific symptoms. However, some subsequently develop with
ASD might be appear such as depression, withdrawal, shame or drug and alcohol abuse, and
even suicidal behavior (17). The comorbid psychiatric disorders occur due to the inability
scoping with that such traumatic events. These occurssing will significantly affect the
recovery process; therefore, it is a requirement for careful attention in both
pharmacologically and psychotherapeutically. The patient at high risk of suicide or drug and
alcohol abuse should be highlighted during initial assessment. It is necessary to evaluate
this potential harm which gets into the treatment pathway and the recovery process.Acute
Stress Disorder Rehabilitation Essay.ConclusionsIn conclusion, (4) the criteria set for ASD in
DSM-V will allow identifying the people who had negative reaction to a traumatic event.
Because of the short duration, it is necessary to assess severe traumatic people as quickly as
possible. Then, they can receive an appropriate diagnosis in order to get benefit from
rehabilitation treatments. Having an early treatment will move towards healing and
recovery process. Moreover, as a result of suffering both physical and psychological
conditions, these fragile people require a high level of support from family member,
physicians as well as social support network to be back to normal life.Acute Stress Disorder
Rehabilitation Essay.