The most common anxiety attacks are Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Phobic Disorders, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and Stress-related Disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Attacks
Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD) is characterized by anxiety symptoms that are present for much of the time and not restricted to specific situations.
Generalized anxiety often accompanies phobias and is extremely common in people who are depressed. It can also be caused by physical illness, such as an overactive thyroid gland, or result from the emotional response to a serious illness such as a heart attack.
Some 15 per cent of people with GAD have a hereditary background, it is likely that their brother, sister or a parent are suffering from a similar problem. This disorder reflects an inherited tendency to the attacks or the effect of the surrounding environment. Two thirds of sufferers are women.
Panic Disorders
In panic disorders, repeated panic attacks occur unpredictably and often without obvious causes. They consist of severe anxiety attacks with physical and psychological symptoms.
Physical symptoms can include any of the general symptoms of anxiety described above, and more often that of the hyperventilation syndrome.
Psychological symptoms typically include dread (particularly of extreme events such as dying), having a seizure, losing control or 'going mad'.
To the sufferer, the attacks feel as if they are going on for a long time, but actually they tend to last only a few minutes, and at their longest they last around an hour. Panic attack is common in depression, GAD or agoraphobia.
Phobic Disorders
A phobia is a fear that is out of proportion to the situation that causes it and cannot be explained easily.
Simple phobias are phobias that are specific to objects or situations. Specific phobias include:
Animal phobia (eg dogs, snakes, frogs, cockroach, spiders and other insects) these phobias often start in childhood, usually before the age of seven years.
Blood and injury phobia: the fear of blood tests or the sight of blood that results in fainting.
Vertigo: a fear of heights and hills.
Agoraphobia: an intense fear of leaving the home, being in crowded places, traveling on public transport and being in any place that is difficult to leave.
Social phobia: a fear of social interaction with others, talking to people, eating, drinking and speaking in public. Many people have a mixture of both agoraphobia and social phobia.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
An increase in obsessional symptoms can occur in depression, though full-blown OCD is still rare. The symptoms are a little different to other anxiety attacks and include:
O bsessional thoughts that come repeatedly into the person's mind, despite him or her trying to stop them. Obsessional thoughts may include a fear of dirt or germs, doubting that something wrong has been done (such as locking the door, turning the lights off) or unpleasant and graphic images in the mind of harming others or themselves.
Compulsive acts (obsess ional acts) are repetitive actions based on the obsessional thoughts. A person with obsessional thoughts about dirt may spend long periods cleaning the house and washing their hands.
Stress-related Disorders
There are a number of psychological consequences to major stressful events and these often include symptoms of anxiety. There are three types of reactions:
•acute stress reaction starts within minutes (if not immediately) of the stressful event. Symptoms are: the person feeling dazed and disorientated, anger and withdrawal.
•adjustment reaction starts within one month of the stressful event, and symptoms tend to resolve within six months. They may include depression, anxiety, irritability and a feeling of being unable to cope.
•post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tends to come after weeks, or even months, of a stressful event that was of an exceptionally threatening or catastrophic nature, which would cause distress in almost anyone. It can persist for years.
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