Panic Disorder (cont.)

Yes, panic attacks are real and potentially quite emotionally disabling. Fortunately, they can be controlled with specific treatments. Because of the disturbing physical signs and symptoms that accompany panic attacks, they may be mistaken for heart attacks or some other life-threatening medical illness. In fact, up to 25% of people who visit emergency rooms because of chest pain are actually experiencing panic. As a result, people with this symptom often undergo extensive medical tests to rule out these other conditions. Sadly, sometimes more than 90% of these individuals are not appropriately diagnosed as suffering from panic.

Loved ones as well as medical personnel generally attempt to reassure the panic attack sufferer that he or she is not in great danger. But these efforts at reassurance can sometimes add to the patient's difficulties. If the doctors use expressions such as "nothing serious," "all in your head," or "nothing to worry about," this may give the incorrect impression that there is no real problem, that they should be able to overcome their symptoms on their own and that treatment is not possible or necessary. The point is that while panic attacks can certainly be serious, they are not organ-threatening. Therefore, for individuals who might wonder what to do to help the panic sufferer at the time of an anxiety attack, a more effective approach tends to be to acknowledge their fear and the intensity of their symptoms while reassuring the person having the panic attack that what is occurring is not life-threatening and can be treated.

Although there are not specific causes for panic attacks in adults or children, like most other emotional symptoms, panic is understood to be the result of a combination of biological vulnerabilities, ways of thinking, and social stressors (biopsychosocial model). According to one theory of panic disorder, the body's normal "alarm system," the set of mental and physical mechanisms that allows a person to respond to a threat, tends to be triggered unnecessarily, when there is no danger. Scientists don't know exactly why this happens or why some people are more susceptible to the problem than others. Panic disorder has been found to run in families, and this may mean that inheritance (genetics) plays a strong role in determining who will get it. However, many people who have no family history of the disorder develop it. Studies differ as to whether nutritional deficiencies like of zinc or magnesium deficiencies may also play a role as a risk factor for developing panic disorder. While some statistics suggest that disadvantaged ethnic minorities tend to suffer from internalizing disorders like panic disorder less often than the majority population in the United States, other research shows that may be the result of differences in how ethnic groups interpret and discuss signs and symptoms of intense fright, like panic attacks.

Psychologically, people who develop panic attacks or an anxiety disorder are more likely to have a history of what is known as anxiety sensitivity. Anxiety sensitivity is the tendency for a person to fear that anxiety-related bodily sensations (like brief chest pain) have dire personal consequences (for example, believing that it automatically means their heart will stop). From a social standpoint, a risk factor for developing panic disorder as an adolescent or adult is a history of being physically or sexually abused as a child. This is even more the case for panic disorder when compared to other anxiety disorders. Often, the first attacks are triggered by physical illnesses, another major life stress, or perhaps medications that increase activity in the part of the brain involved in fear reactions.

Source: MedicineNet.com
http://www.medicinenet.com/panic_disorder/article.htm