What are symptoms associated with PTSD?
The first criteria involved in diagnosing PTSD is that the person must have experienced some sort of traumatic event, e.g., a work-related accident, perhaps an assault involving injury. After the event, an individual may experience symptoms from three symptoms categories: 1 Re-experiencing; 2 Arousal; 3 Avoidance. So, similar to TBI, an individual may become anxious, agitated, startle easily, be irritable… but also express symptoms such as avoidance of situations where the TBI was acquired. For example, it’s not hard to imagine someone who was injured in a car accident avoiding driving. But that person may also avoiding walking along busy streets, or be hypervigilent when crossing a street. So, agitated arousal itself would not result in a diagnosis of PTSD, but that in combination with other symptoms might. Are patients with a TBI more susceptible to PTSD symptoms? It can go either way. If you have experienced a traumatic event in the past, you may be more vulnerable to experiencing
