Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (abbreviated to PTSD) is an anxiety disorder or psychological injury that arises following a traumatic event, often one that threatened or caused great harm. A PTSD sufferer will experience a severe emotional reaction which can go on for a prolonged period of time; they may not even attribute that reaction to the event.

Symptoms of PTSD, aside from the severe emotional reaction itself, vary from re-experiencing the event (flashbacks), nightmares, insomnia and avoiding any sort of stimuli that is associated with the traumatic event. In order to be diagnosed with PTSD, it is essential that someone has been experiencing symptoms for at least six continual months, and these symptoms must have significant negative impact on the sufferer’s work and personal relationships.

PTSD used to be famously most associated with 'shell shock' or battle fatigue: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that arose after being at war. However, in the past decade there has been much education about this disorder and we now know that it can arise after any traumatic event, such as a road traffic accident or a personal injury that arose from clinical or professional negligence, for instance. If someone develops PTSD due to someone else's negligence, they should seek advice from a claims management company such as Claim-Easy, who can discuss their personal case and if possible seek compensation on their behalf.