RESEARCH
Physical Science!
Potassium
The element Potassium was discovered in 1807 by Humphry Davy. It is a soft silvery-white metal, with properties very similiar to those of regular table salt. It does not occur naturally in nature, because potassium reacts violently with water. Yet it still makes up 2.1% of the earths crust. It's a solid at room temperature, as the melting point of potassium is 146.08 degrees Farenheit and the boiling point is 1,398 degrees Farenheit. Potassium is found in foods like banana's, peanuts, tomatoes, potatoes, fish, and chicken. It is also found in fertilizer, as well as medical supplies. It is also used to produce other chemicals. Potassium is classified as an Alkali metal on the Table of Elements, and it is primarily mined in Germany, New Mexico, California, and Utah.
Senior Paper :D
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Rachael Woodward
On the outside, I guess I look like a normal teen with my own collection of issues, just like everyone else on the face of the planet. But on the inside, I can tell you a completely different story. I can tell you a story of trust issues, flash backs, avoidance, irritability, self-destructive behavior, and sleepless nights due to re-occurring nightmares. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental illness that is severely misunderstood and misdiagnosed in the United States.
When your sense of safety and trust is shattered, it’s normal to feel crazy, disconnected, or numb. It’s common to have bad dreams, feel fearful, and find it difficult to stop thinking about what happened, which are normal reactions to abnormal events. For most people however, these symptoms are short lived. They may last several days or even weeks, but they gradually lift. But if you have PTSD, the symptoms don’t decrease. You don’t feel a little better everyday. In fact, you may start to feel worse. After a traumatic experience, the mind and body are in shock, but as you make sense of what happened, and process your emotions, you come out of it. With PTSD however, you remain in psychological shock. Your memory of what happened and your feelings are disconnected. In order to move on, it’s important to face and feel your memories and emotions.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can occur after exposure to a traumatic event. There are three forms of PTSD; acute, chronic, and delayed onset. Acute PTSD is when the duration of symptoms is shorter than three months. Chronic PTSD is when the symptoms last three months or longer. Delayed onset PTSD is when there is at least a six-month period between the traumatic event and the onset of symptoms.
(www.ptsd.)
There are so many different traumatic events that can lead to any form of PTSD. Causes like car/plane crashes, natural disasters, rape, sexual/physical abuse, abuse, war, violence, witnessing violence, drug addiction, life threatening illness, medical complications, terrorist attacks, sudden death of a loved one, kidnapping, childhood neglect, and assault are just a few of them. (www.ptsd.)
There are three main symptom groups for PTSD; re-experiencing, avoidance and numbing, and increased anxiety and emotional arousal. When it comes to re-experiencing the traumatic event, there can be many unsettling symptoms, such as intrusive upsetting memories, flashbacks, nightmares, feeling intense distress randomly and out of no where, and physical reactions like pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, and muscle tension. The symptoms of avoidance and numbing are different. They range from avoiding activities, people, places and thoughts, to loss of interest in life in general, to feeling emotionally numb or detached from others to sense of limited future. The third group of symptoms, categorized as increased anxiety and emotional arousal, include symptoms like difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, irritability, out burst of anger, difficulty concentrating and hyper vigilance. Other symptoms of PTSD that fall into all three categories include guilt, shame, self-blame, substance abuse, depression, hopelessness, physical aches and pains, feeling alienated and alone, and suicidal thoughts. (www.psychcentral.com)
PTSD is a severe mental illness, but treatment is available. There are actually a few different treatment options. These options range from trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, and medications. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy involves carefully and gradually exposing the victim to the event/trauma. It also involves identifying upsetting thoughts and replacing them with a more balanced picture. During trauma-focused behavioral therapy, the main goal seeks to change the way a trauma victim feels and acts by changing patterns of thinking or behavior that is responsible for the negative emotions. Family therapy is something that can not only treat the PTSD of the victim, but can also help the loved ones of the victim understand what they are going through and teach them what they can do to help. Family therapy can help everyone work through relationship/communication problems caused by PTSD, because the symptoms can get in the way of the family life. The victim may pull away from loved ones, are not able to get along with people, and become angry or violent. Which us when medication can be helpful. Medication for insomnia, bipolar behavior, anxiety, or depression is sometimes pre-scribed to people for secondary PTSD symptoms. (www.mayoclinic.com)
Complex PTSD is found among individuals who have been exposed to prolonged traumatic circumstances, such as childhood sexual abuse. These individuals are diagnosed with borderline or anti-social personality disorder. They exhibit behavioral difficulties such as impulsivity, aggression, sexually acting out, eating disorders, alcohol/drug abuse, self-destructive actions, and extreme difficulties such as fragmented thoughts, disassociation, and amnesia. Treatment of complex PTSD can take much longer than acute, chronic, or delayed onset PTSD. (www.helpguide.org)
According to the PTSD Statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 7.7 million American adults suffer from PTSD. The average age for the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder is 23 years, but it can develop at any age. Even children can experience PTSD. Approximately 30% of men and 27% of woman have or will experience PTSD at some point in their life. Post-traumatic stress disorder was particularly prevalent after the Vietnam War, with 24% of veterans reporting symptoms.
(www.mayoclinic.org)
When the U.S. government conducted the NNVRS (National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study) in the mid to late 1980’s, approximately 15% of men and 9% of woman were found to currently have PTSD. These findings, which were obtained exactly a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, found that for many veterans, their PTSD had become a chronic condition. In fact, fourteen years after the NVVRS, many of the veterans were interviewed again, and it was found that a substantial proportion continued to have PTSD. Veterans who continued to have PTSD 14 years after their first interview, 24 years after the end of the Vietnam War, were found to have considerably more psychological and social problems. They reported lower satisfaction with their marriage, sex life, and life in general. They also indicated having more parenting difficulties, higher divorce rates, lower happiness, and more physical health complaints, such as fatigue, aches, and chills. Veterans with chronic PTSD were also more likely to be smokers.
(www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages)
For many veterans, memories of their wartime experiences can still be upsetting long after they served in combat. If it’s an older veteran, they may have served many years ago, but their military experience can still affect their life today. Many older veterans find that they have PTSD symptoms even fifty or more years after their wartime experiences. There are a number of reasons why symptoms of PTSD may increase with age. Having retired from work may make symptoms feel worse, because there is more time to think and fewer things to distract from those memories. Having medical problems and feeling like you are not as strong as you used to be may also increase symptoms. Finding bad news on the television and scenes from current wars can bring back bad memories. If alcohol or other substances were once used as a coping method and then the use of these substances stop, without a healthier coping method, it could also make symptoms worse. While PTSD symptoms can occur soon after a traumatic experience, that is not always the case. There are different symptom patterns. Some veterans begin to have PTSD symptoms soon after they return from war, and these symptoms can last until later in life. Other veterans don’t have PTSD symptoms at all until later in life. For some veterans though, PTSD symptoms can be high right after their war experience, go down over the years, and then worsen again later on. (www.mayoclinic.com/health)
Many older veterans have functioned well since their military experience. Then later in life, they begin to think more or become more emotional about their wartime experience. As you age, it’s normal to look back over your life and try to make sense of your experiences. For veterans, this process can trigger LOSS (Late-Onset Stress Symptomatology). The symptoms of LOSS are very similar to those of PTSD. With LOSS, though, veterans might have fewer symptoms, less severe symptoms, or begin having symptoms later in life. LOSS differs from PTSD in that LOSS appears to be closely related to the aging process. People with LOSS might live most of their lives relatively well. They go to work and spend time with family and friends. Then they begin to confront normal age-related changes such as retirement, loss of loved ones, and increased health problems. As they go through these stresses, they may start to have more feelings and thought about their military experiences.
The future of PTSD treatment is evolving, with new treatments ranging from neurochemical treatments involving chemical changes to the brain, to virtual reality, battlemind, or counseling over the internet. When it comes to the nuerochemical treatments, there are different options. Experiments show that lower levels of Stathmin in the brain help disassociate fear from memories. Research shows that deficient levels of Gastrin- releasing peptides lead to forming stronger fear and memories. Research also shows that increasing the levels of the anti-anxiety chemical, neuropeptide Y, which occurs naturally in the brain, can help prevent PTSD. Another newer treatment option is counseling over the internet or by phone in attempts to reach more people. Virtual reality is also another newer treatment option, which involves exposure therapy using virtual realities. In “vivo exposure,” a hierarchy is constructed that begins with targets of moderate difficulty and then moves gradually to more challenging targets as the patient succeeds with the lower items. Energy Processing Therapy works with the energy median pathways in your body, also used in acupuncture, which can become imbalanced from the impact of a traumatic event. Rebalancing the energy system as you think of the traumatic event can change your emotions and your behaviors. Hypnotherapy also focuses on rewiring the brain to change perceptions on the subconscious level. Using the power of suggestion, plus processing formulas, this form of treatment focuses on the present and future rather than on rehashing the past. The biggest future treatment of PTSD though, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR combines elements of psychodynamic, cognitive, client centered and behavioral therapies. EMDR was developed in 1987, by Dr Francine Shapiro. A standard EMDR treatment involves eight phases, each using specific psychotherapeutic procedures. As each patient’s specific traumatic symptoms will be unique to them, each EMDR session will be just as unique. EMDR has been studied more then any other as a treatment for PTSD, but experts still can’t agree about its effectiveness. In 2004, the American Psychiatric Association recognized in its practice guidelines for PTSD that EMDR might be as effective as other treatments but asked for more research to be done. (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) disrupts the lives of those suffering with it, interfering with the ability to meet their daily needs and perform the most basic tasks. Trauma continues to intrude on the lives of people with PTSD as they relive the life-threatening experiences they have suffered, reacting in mind and body as though such events were still occurring. Not everyone experiencing traumatic events develops PTSD; it is a complex psychobiological condition that can emerge in the wake of life-threatening experiences, when normal psychological stress responses to a traumatic event are not resolved and released.
As a PTSD survivor, I can tell you that it is not something you can imagine if you have never experienced it, and it takes a lot of strength and perseverance to push yourself through, simply because getting better, first involves reliving the traumatic event. PTSD is a severe mental illness that is severally misunderstood and misdiagnosed in the United States, even though we have the largest minority of PTSD sufferers. But hopefully with new research being done and new treatments being questioned, there will one day soon be a way to completely treat or prevent PTSD.
Rachael Woodward
On the outside, I guess I look like a normal teen with my own collection of issues, just like everyone else on the face of the planet. But on the inside, I can tell you a completely different story. I can tell you a story of trust issues, flash backs, avoidance, irritability, self-destructive behavior, and sleepless nights due to re-occurring nightmares. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental illness that is severely misunderstood and misdiagnosed in the United States.
When your sense of safety and trust is shattered, it’s normal to feel crazy, disconnected, or numb. It’s common to have bad dreams, feel fearful, and find it difficult to stop thinking about what happened, which are normal reactions to abnormal events. For most people however, these symptoms are short lived. They may last several days or even weeks, but they gradually lift. But if you have PTSD, the symptoms don’t decrease. You don’t feel a little better everyday. In fact, you may start to feel worse. After a traumatic experience, the mind and body are in shock, but as you make sense of what happened, and process your emotions, you come out of it. With PTSD however, you remain in psychological shock. Your memory of what happened and your feelings are disconnected. In order to move on, it’s important to face and feel your memories and emotions.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can occur after exposure to a traumatic event. There are three forms of PTSD; acute, chronic, and delayed onset. Acute PTSD is when the duration of symptoms is shorter than three months. Chronic PTSD is when the symptoms last three months or longer. Delayed onset PTSD is when there is at least a six-month period between the traumatic event and the onset of symptoms.
(www.ptsd.)
There are so many different traumatic events that can lead to any form of PTSD. Causes like car/plane crashes, natural disasters, rape, sexual/physical abuse, abuse, war, violence, witnessing violence, drug addiction, life threatening illness, medical complications, terrorist attacks, sudden death of a loved one, kidnapping, childhood neglect, and assault are just a few of them. (www.ptsd.)
There are three main symptom groups for PTSD; re-experiencing, avoidance and numbing, and increased anxiety and emotional arousal. When it comes to re-experiencing the traumatic event, there can be many unsettling symptoms, such as intrusive upsetting memories, flashbacks, nightmares, feeling intense distress randomly and out of no where, and physical reactions like pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, and muscle tension. The symptoms of avoidance and numbing are different. They range from avoiding activities, people, places and thoughts, to loss of interest in life in general, to feeling emotionally numb or detached from others to sense of limited future. The third group of symptoms, categorized as increased anxiety and emotional arousal, include symptoms like difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, irritability, out burst of anger, difficulty concentrating and hyper vigilance. Other symptoms of PTSD that fall into all three categories include guilt, shame, self-blame, substance abuse, depression, hopelessness, physical aches and pains, feeling alienated and alone, and suicidal thoughts. (www.psychcentral.com)
PTSD is a severe mental illness, but treatment is available. There are actually a few different treatment options. These options range from trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, and medications. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy involves carefully and gradually exposing the victim to the event/trauma. It also involves identifying upsetting thoughts and replacing them with a more balanced picture. During trauma-focused behavioral therapy, the main goal seeks to change the way a trauma victim feels and acts by changing patterns of thinking or behavior that is responsible for the negative emotions. Family therapy is something that can not only treat the PTSD of the victim, but can also help the loved ones of the victim understand what they are going through and teach them what they can do to help. Family therapy can help everyone work through relationship/communication problems caused by PTSD, because the symptoms can get in the way of the family life. The victim may pull away from loved ones, are not able to get along with people, and become angry or violent. Which us when medication can be helpful. Medication for insomnia, bipolar behavior, anxiety, or depression is sometimes pre-scribed to people for secondary PTSD symptoms. (www.mayoclinic.com)
Complex PTSD is found among individuals who have been exposed to prolonged traumatic circumstances, such as childhood sexual abuse. These individuals are diagnosed with borderline or anti-social personality disorder. They exhibit behavioral difficulties such as impulsivity, aggression, sexually acting out, eating disorders, alcohol/drug abuse, self-destructive actions, and extreme difficulties such as fragmented thoughts, disassociation, and amnesia. Treatment of complex PTSD can take much longer than acute, chronic, or delayed onset PTSD. (www.helpguide.org)
According to the PTSD Statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 7.7 million American adults suffer from PTSD. The average age for the onset of post-traumatic stress disorder is 23 years, but it can develop at any age. Even children can experience PTSD. Approximately 30% of men and 27% of woman have or will experience PTSD at some point in their life. Post-traumatic stress disorder was particularly prevalent after the Vietnam War, with 24% of veterans reporting symptoms.
(www.mayoclinic.org)
When the U.S. government conducted the NNVRS (National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study) in the mid to late 1980’s, approximately 15% of men and 9% of woman were found to currently have PTSD. These findings, which were obtained exactly a decade after the end of the Vietnam War, found that for many veterans, their PTSD had become a chronic condition. In fact, fourteen years after the NVVRS, many of the veterans were interviewed again, and it was found that a substantial proportion continued to have PTSD. Veterans who continued to have PTSD 14 years after their first interview, 24 years after the end of the Vietnam War, were found to have considerably more psychological and social problems. They reported lower satisfaction with their marriage, sex life, and life in general. They also indicated having more parenting difficulties, higher divorce rates, lower happiness, and more physical health complaints, such as fatigue, aches, and chills. Veterans with chronic PTSD were also more likely to be smokers.
(www.ptsd.va.gov/public/pages)
For many veterans, memories of their wartime experiences can still be upsetting long after they served in combat. If it’s an older veteran, they may have served many years ago, but their military experience can still affect their life today. Many older veterans find that they have PTSD symptoms even fifty or more years after their wartime experiences. There are a number of reasons why symptoms of PTSD may increase with age. Having retired from work may make symptoms feel worse, because there is more time to think and fewer things to distract from those memories. Having medical problems and feeling like you are not as strong as you used to be may also increase symptoms. Finding bad news on the television and scenes from current wars can bring back bad memories. If alcohol or other substances were once used as a coping method and then the use of these substances stop, without a healthier coping method, it could also make symptoms worse. While PTSD symptoms can occur soon after a traumatic experience, that is not always the case. There are different symptom patterns. Some veterans begin to have PTSD symptoms soon after they return from war, and these symptoms can last until later in life. Other veterans don’t have PTSD symptoms at all until later in life. For some veterans though, PTSD symptoms can be high right after their war experience, go down over the years, and then worsen again later on. (www.mayoclinic.com/health)
Many older veterans have functioned well since their military experience. Then later in life, they begin to think more or become more emotional about their wartime experience. As you age, it’s normal to look back over your life and try to make sense of your experiences. For veterans, this process can trigger LOSS (Late-Onset Stress Symptomatology). The symptoms of LOSS are very similar to those of PTSD. With LOSS, though, veterans might have fewer symptoms, less severe symptoms, or begin having symptoms later in life. LOSS differs from PTSD in that LOSS appears to be closely related to the aging process. People with LOSS might live most of their lives relatively well. They go to work and spend time with family and friends. Then they begin to confront normal age-related changes such as retirement, loss of loved ones, and increased health problems. As they go through these stresses, they may start to have more feelings and thought about their military experiences.
The future of PTSD treatment is evolving, with new treatments ranging from neurochemical treatments involving chemical changes to the brain, to virtual reality, battlemind, or counseling over the internet. When it comes to the nuerochemical treatments, there are different options. Experiments show that lower levels of Stathmin in the brain help disassociate fear from memories. Research shows that deficient levels of Gastrin- releasing peptides lead to forming stronger fear and memories. Research also shows that increasing the levels of the anti-anxiety chemical, neuropeptide Y, which occurs naturally in the brain, can help prevent PTSD. Another newer treatment option is counseling over the internet or by phone in attempts to reach more people. Virtual reality is also another newer treatment option, which involves exposure therapy using virtual realities. In “vivo exposure,” a hierarchy is constructed that begins with targets of moderate difficulty and then moves gradually to more challenging targets as the patient succeeds with the lower items. Energy Processing Therapy works with the energy median pathways in your body, also used in acupuncture, which can become imbalanced from the impact of a traumatic event. Rebalancing the energy system as you think of the traumatic event can change your emotions and your behaviors. Hypnotherapy also focuses on rewiring the brain to change perceptions on the subconscious level. Using the power of suggestion, plus processing formulas, this form of treatment focuses on the present and future rather than on rehashing the past. The biggest future treatment of PTSD though, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR combines elements of psychodynamic, cognitive, client centered and behavioral therapies. EMDR was developed in 1987, by Dr Francine Shapiro. A standard EMDR treatment involves eight phases, each using specific psychotherapeutic procedures. As each patient’s specific traumatic symptoms will be unique to them, each EMDR session will be just as unique. EMDR has been studied more then any other as a treatment for PTSD, but experts still can’t agree about its effectiveness. In 2004, the American Psychiatric Association recognized in its practice guidelines for PTSD that EMDR might be as effective as other treatments but asked for more research to be done. (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) disrupts the lives of those suffering with it, interfering with the ability to meet their daily needs and perform the most basic tasks. Trauma continues to intrude on the lives of people with PTSD as they relive the life-threatening experiences they have suffered, reacting in mind and body as though such events were still occurring. Not everyone experiencing traumatic events develops PTSD; it is a complex psychobiological condition that can emerge in the wake of life-threatening experiences, when normal psychological stress responses to a traumatic event are not resolved and released.
As a PTSD survivor, I can tell you that it is not something you can imagine if you have never experienced it, and it takes a lot of strength and perseverance to push yourself through, simply because getting better, first involves reliving the traumatic event. PTSD is a severe mental illness that is severally misunderstood and misdiagnosed in the United States, even though we have the largest minority of PTSD sufferers. But hopefully with new research being done and new treatments being questioned, there will one day soon be a way to completely treat or prevent PTSD.