[libribook.com] Traumatic Scar Tissue Management 1st Edition

Rehabilitation and reintegration
This phase occurs after a hospital stay and, in some cases, may take years.
During this phase there are adjustment difficulties, PTSD manifestations,
additional anxiety and depression.
Unless the MT works in a hospital setting, most therapists will see the traumatic
scar patient in the rehab and reintegration phase.
PTSD
PTSD is associated with a wide range of psychiatric comorbidity, poor quality of
life, and social dysfunction.
PTSD is characterized by three predominant categories of symptoms.
• Re-experiencing symptoms including: flashbacks, frightening thoughts and
disturbing dreams
• Avoidance symptoms including: staying away from places, events, or objects
that are reminders of the experience, feeling emotionally numb, experiencing
strong guilt, depression, or worry, losing interest in activities that were
enjoyable in the past, difficulty remembering the dangerous event
• Hyperarousal symptoms including: being easily startled, feeling tense or ‘on
edge’, sleep disturbance, and/or having angry outbursts.
A diagnosis of PTSD is considered when chronic alterations in the physiological
stress response and classic PTSD symptoms persist beyond a month after the
traumatic event. PTSD symptoms can persist indefinitely.
According to van der Kolk (2014), what distinguishes people who develop
PTSD from people who are temporarily overwhelmed by trauma is that people
who develop PTSD keep reliving it in thoughts, feelings or images. It is the
constant, intrusive reliving – not the actual trauma – that causes PTSD.
In those with PTSD, sustained SNS hyperarousal can affect the ongoing
evaluation of sensory stimuli. Although memory is ordinarily an active and
constructive process, in PTSD failure of declarative memory may lead to
organization of the trauma on a somatosensory level (as visual images or