Psychiatric Injuries

Psychiatric injuries are the emotional reactions of victims of traumatic personal injuries, like a Michigan car or truck accident. Psychiatric injuries include fear, depression, withdrawal and anger. These problems can occur immediately or sometime after a car accident. Many will develop post traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD") and/or other persistent emotional, psychological or psychiatric problems. These injuries are commonly overlooked by doctors and under compensated by personal injury lawyers who fail to understand the terrible consequences they can have.

Some children and adolescents will have prolonged psychiatric injury problems after a traumatic event. These potentially chronic psychiatric injury conditions include depression and prolonged grief. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") is another serious and potentially long-lasting psychiatric injury problem. This condition is diagnosed when the following symptoms have been present for longer than one month:

• Re-experiencing the auto accident through play or in trauma-specific nightmares or flashbacks of the car accident, or distress over events that resemble or symbolize the trauma.
• Routine avoidance of reminders of the Michigan car accident or a general lack of responsiveness (e.g., diminished interests or a sense of having a foreshortened future).
• Increased sleep disturbances, irritability, poor concentration, startle reaction and regressive behavior.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") may resolve without treatment, but some form of therapy by a mental health professional is often required in order for healing to occur. Fortunately, it is more common for a traumatized child or adolescent to have some of the symptoms of PTSD than to develop the full-blown disorder.

People with PTSD are treated with specialized forms of psychotherapy and sometimes with medications or a combination of the two. One of the forms of psychotherapy shown to be effective is cognitive/behavioral therapy, or CBT. In CBT, the patient is taught methods of overcoming anxiety or depression and modifying undesirable behaviors such as avoidance. The therapist helps the patient examine and re-evaluate beliefs that are interfering with healing, such as the belief that the traumatic event will happen again. Children who undergo CBT are taught to avoid "catastrophizing." For example, they are reassured that dark clouds do not necessarily mean another hurricane, that the fact that someone is angry doesn't necessarily mean that another shooting is imminent, etc.

Play therapy and art therapy also can help younger children with psychiatric injuries to remember a traumatic Michigan auto accident safely and express their feelings about it. Other forms of psychotherapy that have been found to help persons with PTSD include group and exposure therapy.

There is no "set time" for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD").

Research has shown that support from family and friends can be an important part of recovery from psychiatric injuries, and that involving people in group-discussion very soon after a catastrophic Michigan car or semi truck accident may reduce some of the symptoms of PTSD.

There has been a good deal of research on the use of medications for adults with PTSD, including research on the formation of emotionally charged memories and medications that may help to block the development of symptoms. Medications appear to be useful in reducing overwhelming symptoms of arousal (such as sleep disturbances and an exaggerated startle reflex), intrusive thoughts, and avoidance; reducing accompanying conditions such as depression and panic; and improving impulse control and related behavioral problems. Research is just beginning on the use of medications to treat PTSD in children and adolescents.

There is preliminary evidence that psychotherapy focused on trauma and grief, in combination with selected medications, can be effective in alleviating PTSD symptoms and accompanying depression. More medication treatment research is needed to increase our knowledge of how best to treat children who have PTSD.

Parents' responses to a violent event or disaster strongly influence their children's ability to recover from an psychiatric injury. This is particularly true for mothers of young children. If the mother is depressed or highly anxious, she may need to get emotional support or counseling in order to be able to help her child.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") is often accompanied by depression. Depression must be treated along with PTSD in these instances, and early treatment is best.

Psychiatric Injuries | Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Acute Stress Disorder | Adjustment Disorders | Major Depressive Episode