Trauma therapy, or PTSD treatment, is a type of therapy that can help an individual handle the emotional distress caused by a traumatic event. More than 50% of people deal with at least one form of trauma at some point. Traumatic events may include sexual abuse, a tragic accident, chronic abuse, and bullying, to mention a few.
There are different types of trauma therapy, depending on the type and severity of the traumatic memory. It is important to find a program that specifically uses trauma treatment. Acera Health works with patients to determine the best treatment approach for each patient with PTSD treatment in Orange County.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition resulting from witnessing or experiencing a terrifying event. PTSD has had many names over time, such as “shell shock” and “combat fatigue” in WWI and WWII, respectively. The condition can affect anyone, notwithstanding their gender, race, age, or nationality.
It is common for people to experience feelings of shock, fear, and anxiety after a traumatic event. For most of these people, these feelings associated with the event go away with time. For people with PTSD, these symptoms only worsen as time passes. Sometimes these symptoms can impair their ability to carry out activities of daily living.
PTSD affects approximately 6% of the population, and it’s more common in women than men. While the symptoms of the condition can last for years, getting effective treatment is critical to improving function.
PTSD develops after a traumatic event. Everyone reacts to life-threatening situations differently. Each individual has their unique way of responding to fear, anxiety, and the threat brought about by tragic circumstances. Because of this, not all people who experience or witness traumatic events end up developing PTSD.
The level of social and emotional support an individual receives after a traumatic experience significantly lowers their likelihood of developing PTSD. Individuals repeatedly exposed to life-threatening situations are at the highest risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
A person may be more likely to develop PTSD if they already suffer from other mental health conditions.
On top of post-traumatic stress disorder, there always exists the possibility of a co-occurring disorder. This is also known as a dual diagnosis, and is when a substance abuse disorder and a mental health disorder overlap in an individual.
People exposed to substance use often develop a mental health issue at some point in their lives, so it’s important to treat both the substance abuse and mental illness when this happens. At Acera Health, we have treatment programs specifically for people who suffer from substance abuse and traumatic stress.
Most PTSD symptoms start to show within the first three months after the traumatic event. In special cases, however, individuals may not experience any symptoms for years.
The intensity and the duration of these symptoms vary from one individual to the next. The recovery process also varies from person to person. Some may get better within six months of treatment, others take much longer.
The signs and symptoms of PTSD fall into four distinct categories, as highlighted below:
As mentioned, most people who go through traumatic events will experience all these symptoms. Long-term effects of untreated PTSD include a drastically-altered nervous system.
To receive a PTSD diagnosis, the symptoms should have lasted for more than four weeks and must impede their daily functioning.
Treatment for PTSD should be considered under the following circumstances:
The objective of PTSD treatment is to manage the physical and emotional symptoms. While also making the patient more independent, and helping them better manage triggers.
The following are the main types of PTSD treatment:
Doctors often prescribe their patients antidepressants to keep the symptoms under control, such as:
Psychotherapy often involves assisting the person in developing skills to manage their symptoms and triggers. Another goal of therapy is to educate the patient’s family about the disorder. There are many psychotherapy techniques used to treat people with PTSD, for example:
The recovery journey for PTSD is gradual. While symptoms of the condition may not disappear completely, getting early treatment can help manage it more efficiently.
When getting PTSD treatment, you want to make sure you are working with a competent provider. Acera Health offers an evidence-based treatment program for adults battling mental health issues like PTSD.
Contact us today to start your journey to recovery and learn more about our Orange County treatment centers.
To learn more about if Acera Health is right for you, and what to expect, contact us Today!
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email mickey.webb@acerahealth.com
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to mickey.webb@acerahealth.com