911 Alison Packer

Mental health

• Like many other major disasters, 9/11 brought with it a host of psychological repercussions, one of the most severe of which has been post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is characterized by trouble sleeping, difficulty controlling anger, losing interest in activities, flashbacks, emotional numbness

• studies have shown that patients with PTSD will have an increased number of suicides and hospitalization patients with PTSD will have an increased frequency of alcohol abuse and drug dependency problems.

the person may relive the experience as terrible dreams or nightmares or as daytime flashbacks of the even

PTSD

A person may try to avoid trauma-related thoughts or feelings and activities or situations that may trigger memories of the trauma

The tools to treat PTSD

The basic tools for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder are:Individual psychotherapy that is targeted at symptom clustersPeer group support, especially for chronic PTSDMedication

• Almost one in five adults enrolled in the Health Department's WTC Health Registry reported post-traumatic stress symptoms 5 to 6 years after 9/11 which is 4 times the rate typically found in the general population.

• Due to the debris from the world trade center people followed suffered from some respiratory consequences :

• asthma, 28%; sinusitis, 42%; gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), 39%; and spirometric abnormalities, 42%.

Rescuers

• Nearly 70 percent of recovery workers who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center have suffered lung problem

Work cited

• www.gao.gov/new.items/d041068t.pdf• www.msnbc.msn.com/.../health-health

.../most-recovery-workers-suff...• www.nyc.gov/html/doh/wtc/html/know/know

.shtml www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749033