Panic Disorders
Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurring severe panic attacks. It may also include significant behavioral changes lasting at least a month and of ongoing worry about the implications or concern about having other attacks. The latter are called anticipatory attacks (DSM-IVR). Panic disorder is not the same as agoraphobia (fear of public places), although many afflicted with panic disorder also suffer from agoraphobia. Panic attacks cannot be predicted, therefore an individual may become stressed, anxious or worried wondering when the next panic attack will occur. Panic disorder may be differentiated as a medical condition, orchemical imbalance. The DSM-IV-TR describes panic disorder and anxiety differently. Whereas anxiety is preceded by chronicstressors which build to reactions of moderate intensity that can last for days, weeks or months, panic attacks are acute events triggered by a sudden, out-of-the-blue cause: duration is short and symptoms are more intense. Panic attacks can occur in children, as well as adults. Panic in young people may be particularly distressing because children tend to have less insight about what is happening, and parents are also likely to experience distress when attacks occur.
Screening tools like Panic Disorder Severity Scale can be used to detect possible cases of disorder, and suggest the need for a formal diagnostic assessment.
Panic disorder is a potentially disabling disorder, but can be controlled and successfully treated. Because of the intense symptoms that accompany panic disorder, it may be mistaken for a life-threatening physical illness such as a heart attack. This misconception often aggravates or triggers future attacks (some are called "anticipatory attacks"). People frequently go to hospital emergency roomson experiencing a panic attack, and extensive medical tests may be performed to rule out other conditions, thus creating further anxiety. There are three types of panic attacks: unexpected, situationally bounded, and situationally predisposed.
Signs and symptoms
Panic disorder sufferers usually have a series of intense episodes of extreme anxiety during panic attacks. These attacks typically last about ten minutes, and can be as short-lived as 1–5 minutes, but can last twenty minutes to more than an hour, or until helpful intervention is made. Panic attacks can wax and wane for a period of hours (panic attacks rolling into one another), and the intensity and specific symptoms of panic may vary over the duration.
In some cases the attack may continue at unabated high intensity, or seem to be increasing in severity. Common symptoms of an attack include rapid heartbeat, perspiration,dizziness, dyspnea, trembling, uncontrollable fear such as: the fear of losing control and going crazy, the fear of dying and hyperventilation. Other symptoms are sweating, a sensation of choking, paralysis, chest pain, nausea, numbness or tingling, chills or hot flashes, faintness, crying and some sense of altered reality. In addition, the person usually has thoughts of impending doom. Individuals suffering from an episode have often a strong wish of escaping from the situation that provoked the attack. The anxiety of Panic Disorder is particularly severe and noticeably episodic compared to that from Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Panic attacks may be provoked by exposure to certain stimuli (e.g., seeing a mouse) or settings (e.g., the dentist's office). Other attacks may appear unprovoked. Some individuals deal with these events on a regular basis, sometimes daily or weekly. The outward symptoms of a panic attack often cause negative social experiences (e.g., embarrassment, social stigma, social isolation, etc.).
Limited symptom attacks are similar to panic attacks, but have fewer symptoms. Most people with PD experience both panic attacks and limited symptom attacks.
Diagnosis
The DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for panic disorder require unexpected, recurrent panic attacks, followed in at least one instance by at least a month of a significant and related behavior change, a persistent concern of more attacks, or a worry about the attack's consequences. There are two types, one with and one without agoraphobia. Diagnosis is excluded by attacks due to a drug or medical condition, or by panic attacks that are better accounted for by other mental disorders.
Treatment
Identification of treatments that engender as full a response as possible, and can minimize relapse, is imperative. Cognitive behavioural therapy and Positive Self Talk specific for panic are the treatment of choice for panic disorder. Several studies show that 85 to 90 percent of panic disorder patients treated with CBT recover completely from their panic attacks within 12 weeks. When cognitive behavioral therapy is not an option pharmacotherapy can be used. SSRIs are considered a first line pharmacotherapeutic option.
In addition, people with panic disorder may need treatment for other emotional problems. Comorbid clinical depression, personality disorders and alcohol abuse are known risk factors for treatment failure.
As with many disorders, having a support structure of family and friends who understand the condition can help increase the rate of recovery. During an attack, it is not uncommon for the sufferer to develop irrational, immediate fear, which can often be dispelled by a supporter who is familiar with the condition. For more serious or active treatment, there are support groups for anxiety sufferers which can help people understand and deal with the disorder.
Current treatment guidelines American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association primarily recommend either cognitive-behavioral therapy or one of a variety of psychopharmacological interventions. Some evidence exists supporting the superiority of combined treatment approaches.
Another option is self-help based on principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Using a book or a website, a person does the kinds of exercises that would be used in therapy, but they do it on their own, perhaps with some email or phone support from a therapist. A systematic analysis of trials testing this kind of self-help found that websites, books, and other materials based on cognitive-behavioral therapy could help some people. The best-studied conditions are panic disorder and social phobia.
Psychotherapy
Panic Disorder is not the same as phobic symptoms, although phobias commonly result from panic disorder. CBT and one tested form of psychodynamic psychotherapy have been shown efficacious in treating panic disorder with and without agoraphobia. A number of randomized clinical trials have shown that CBT achieves reported panic-free status in 70-90% of patients about 2 years after treatment.
Clinically, a combination of psychotherapy and medication can often produce good results, although research evidence of this approach has been less robust. Some improvement may be noticed in a fairly short period of time — about 6 to 8 weeks. Psychotherapy can improve the effectiveness of medication, reduce the likelihood of relapse for someone who has discontinued medication, and offer help for people with panic disorder who do not respond at all to medication.
The goal of cognitive behavior therapy is to help a patient reorganize thinking processes and anxious thoughts regarding an experience that provokes panic. An approach that proved successful for 87% of patients in a controlled trial is interoceptive therapy, which simulates the symptoms of panic to allow patients to experience them in a controlled environment.
Symptom inductions generally occur for one minute and may include:
- Intentional hyperventilation – creates lightheadedness, derealization, blurred vision, dizziness
- Spinning in a chair – creates dizziness, disorientation
- Straw breathing – creates dyspnea, airway constriction
- Breath holding – creates sensation of being out of breath
- Running in place – creates increased heart rate, respiration, perspiration
- Body tensing – creates feelings of being tense and vigilant
The key to the induction is that the exercises should mimic the most frightening symptoms of a panic attack. Symptom inductions should be repeated three to five times per day until the patient has little to no anxiety in relation to the symptoms that were induced. Often it will take a period of weeks for the afflicted to feel no anxiety in relation to the induced symptoms. With repeated trials, a person learns through experience that these internal sensations do not need to be feared and becomes less sensitized or desensitized to the internal sensation. After repeated trials, when nothing catastrophic happens, the brain learns (hippocampus & amygdala) to not fear the sensations, and the sympathetic nervous system activation fades.
For patients whose panic disorder involves agoraphobia, the traditional cognitive therapy approach has been in vivo exposure, in which the affected individual, accompanied by a therapist, is gradually exposed to the actual situation that provokes panic.
Another form of psychotherapy which has shown effectiveness in controlled clinical trials is panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy, which focuses on the role of dependency, separation anxiety, and anger in causing panic disorder. The underlying theory posits that due to biochemical vulnerability, traumatic early experiences, or both, people with panic disorder have a fearful dependence on others for their sense of security, which leads to separation anxiety and defensive anger. Therapy involves first exploring the stressors that lead to panic episodes, then probing the psychodynamics of the conflicts underlying panic disorder and the defense mechanisms that contribute to the attacks, with attention to transference and separation anxiety issues implicated in the therapist-patient relationship.
Comparative clinical studies suggest that muscle relaxation techniques and breathing exercises are not efficacious in reducing panic attacks. In fact, breathing exercises may actually increase the risk of relapse.
Appropriate treatment by an experienced professional can prevent panic attacks or at least substantially reduce their severity and frequency — bringing significant relief to percent of people with panic disorder. Relapses may occur, but they can often be effectively treated just like the initial episode.
vanApeldoorn, F.J. et al. (2011) demonstrated the additive value of a combined treatment incorporating an SSRI treatment intervention with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).Gloster et al. (2011) went on to examine the role of the therapist in CBT. They randomized patients into two groups: one being treated with CBT in a therapist guided environment, and the second receiving CBT through instruction only, with no therapist guided sessions. The findings indicated that the first group had a somewhat better response rate, but that both groups demonstrated a significant improvement in reduction of panic symptomatology. These findings lend credibility to the application of CBT programs to patients who are unable to access therapeutic services due to financial, or geographic inaccessibility. Koszycky et al. (2011) discuss the efficacy of self-administered cognitive behavioural therapy (SCBT) in situations where patients are unable to retain the services of a therapist. Their study demonstrates that it is possible for SCBT in combination with and SSRI to be as effective as therapist-guided CBT with SSRI. Each of these studies contribute to a new avenue of research that allows effective treatment interventions to be made more easily accessible to the population.
Medication
Appropriate medications are effective for panic disorder. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are first line treatments rather than benzodiazapines due to concerns with the latter regarding tolerance, dependence and abuse. Although there is little evidence that pharmacological interventions can directly alter phobias, few studies have been performed, and medication treatment of panic makes phobia treatment far easier. Medications can include:
- Antidepressants (SSRIs, MAOIs, tricyclic antidepressants and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) : these are taken regularly every day, and alter neurotransmitter configurations which in turn can help to block symptoms. Although these medications are described as "antidepressants", nearly all of them — especially the tricyclic antidepressants — have anti-anxiety properties, in part, due to their sedative effects. SSRIs have been known to exacerbate symptoms in panic disorder patients, especially in the beginning of treatment and have even provoked panic attacks in otherwise healthy individuals. SSRIs are also known to produce withdrawal symptoms which include rebound anxiety and panic attacks. Comorbid depression has been cited as imparting the worst course, leading to chronic, disabling illness.
- Anti-anxiety drugs (benzodiazepines): Use of benzodiazepines for panic disorder is controversial with opinion differing in the medical literature. The American Psychiatric Association states that benzodiazepines can be effective for the treatment of panic disorder and recommends that the choice of whether to use benzodiazepines, antidepressants with antipanic properties or psychotherapy should be based on the individual patient's history and characteristics. They reported that in their view there is insufficient evidence to recommend one treatment over another for panic disorder. The APA noted that while benzodiazepines have the advantage of a rapid onset of action, that this is offset by the risk of developing a benzodiazepine dependence. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence came to a different conclusion, they pointed out the problems of using uncontrolled clinical trials to assess the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy and based on placebo controlled research they concluded that benzodiazepines were not effective in the long-term for panic disorder and recommended that benzodiazepines not be used for longer than 4 weeks for panic disorder. Instead NICE clinical guidelines recommend alternative pharmacotherapeutic or psychotherapeutic interventions. Other experts believe that benzodiazepines are best avoided due to the risks of the development of tolerance and physical dependence.The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry, say that benzodiazepines should not be used as a first line treatment option but are an option for treatment resistant cases of panic disorder Despite increasing focus on the use of antidepressants and other agents for the treatment of anxiety as recommended best practice, benzodiazepines have remained a commonly used medication for panic disorder.
