Anxiety attacks and disorders: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment
Anxiety attacks can occur in individuals with normal personality and also people with personality disorders. Generalized anxiety often begins in relation to stressful events and becomes chronic when stressful events persist. Anxiety disorders are abnormal states with physical and mental symptoms as a fundamental aspect and may be secondary to a psychiatric disorder or organic disease. The most common psychological symptoms of anxiety attacks include irritability, sensitivity to noise, difficulty concentrating, and an intense feeling of restlessness. A person, who is suffering from anxiety disorder looks tired with tense posture, wrinkled forehead, restlessness, and has shaky hands, pale feet, and sweaty armpits. A person easily gets into tears and remains depressed. Anxiety is one of the most common illnesses that occur in human beings. An anxiety disorder is described as a complex emotional situation with unpleasant affect, which is expressed by a feeling of fear and emotional distress accompanied by various bodily symptoms.
The feeling of fear in an anxiety attack is not related to being afraid of anything and is a separate thing because fear is a feeling produced by a known and imminent danger but the feeling of fear in an anxiety attack is a sense of coming danger that is unpredictable and undefinable. Anxiety is a normal emotion that has an active role in the body's response to various stimuli, thereby facilitating the responsiveness of a person, but when anxiety exceeds in frequency, intensity, and duration, it is termed as anxiety disorder in which despite there being no real threat to body, the body produces a state of serious emotional disturbance which is considered as a disease situation.
Signs and symptoms of anxiety disorders
Symptoms and physical signs of anxiety disorders can include the anguish related to gastrointestinal tract. Also, there is often muscle tension in the scalp area, which is perceived as a headache. An anxious person always complains of a "tension headache", but it is only muscular in origin.
Treatment of anxiety attacks
Anxiety attacks should be treated after careful diagnosis and observation of the patient. If the patient is a good historian, it is a plus point. Anxiety symptoms fit in all psychiatric disorders and are sometimes very difficult to diagnose. Also, an anxiety attack is usually linked with depression, so care must be taken to differentiate severe agitated depression and generalized anxiety and this can be done by inquiring with the patient for any severely depressive or suicidal thoughts.
Treatment of anxiety disorders does not require any drugs as such but in cases of exaggeration of the anxiety, some drugs can be recommended. Also sometimes symptoms of palpitations in anxiety can be mimicked with heart disease, which is not always the case.
