The Psychiatry Research Clinic at Creighton University Medical Center is on the search for a better medication for sufferers of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and hope to make this common disorder less of a mystery for doctors worldwide.
Researchers at Creighton are testing the effectiveness of medications currently prescribed for other conditions as treatment for PTSD.
The Food and Drug Administration currently approves two medications to treat the disorder: Zoloft and Paxil. Both medications have negative side effects and work well for only one in three people.
PTSD can be treated by counseling or psychotherapy, but this approach does not work for everyone and if the wrong type of psychotherapy is administered, the patient can suffer further harm.
Researchers are trying to understand what makes some people susceptible to suffering PTSD.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is one of the most common psychiatric and medical conditions in existence. It is a medical condition, a mental illness and a psychological reaction caused by a severe reaction to traumatic stress, a type of stress caused by exposure to an event that threatens life, causes serious harm or violates the person.
Anyone exposed to severe trauma can get PTSD, but not all people do. The most common causes of PTSD are rape, child abuse, domestic violence, crime, assault, accidents and disasters. Childhood trauma and genetic factors seem to play an important role in the development of PTSD.
According to the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the diagnosis of PTSD is considered severe when a survivor of trauma suffers from either re-experiencing the event through flashbacks or distressing dreams, or intense psychological distress or physical reactions to reminders of the event.
PTSD is associated with high rates of mental depression, anxiety and tension. Persons with PTSD complain of insomnia, stomach problems, headaches and nervousness, and can suffer from out-of-body experiences, feeling unreal and, in extreme cases, may suffer paranoia and hallucinations.
Often the diagnosis is missed because patients may be embarrassed about their history, so they suffer in silence without telling their doctor.
CUMC's Psychiatry Research Clinic also plans to study the mechanisms of the abnormal stress response using brain imaging and molecular biology.
Creighton University is an independent, Catholic, comprehensive university operated by the Jesuits, who have a 500-year tradition of excellence in education. Creighton has been ranked at or near the top of Midwestern universities in the U.S. News & World Report magazine's "America's Best Colleges" edition for more than a decade.
Creighton enrolls more than 6,300 students of diverse faiths and races from across the United States and 65 countries. The student body is taught by 700 full-time faculty members in the Colleges of Arts & Sciences, Business Administration, the Graduate School, University College, and schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy and Health Professions, Law, Medicine, Nursing and Summer Sessions. The University is located in Omaha, Nebraska (pop. 800,000 metro area) on a 92-acre campus adjacent to the downtown business district.
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