Anxiety disorders

From WikEd

Definition of Anxiety

Anxiety, according to Nevid and Rathus (2005), is "an emotional state that is accompanied by subjective, behavioral, and physical features. Subjectuve features include worrying, fear of the worst things happening, fear of losing control, nervousness, and inability to relax." (Nevid & Rathus, p. 262)

Definition of Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal anxiety, fear, phobia and nervous condition, that come on suddenly and prevent pursuing normal daily routines.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxiety_disorder)

Types of Anxiety Disorders

Phobias

Panic Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder"

Phobias The term, phobia, refers to a fear. There are several types of phobias: specific phobias, social phobias, and agoraphobias. Specific phobias refer to a "persistent fear of a specific object or situation." (Nevid & Rathus, p. 263). This would include the fear of enclosed places (claustrophobia), the fear of heights (acrophobia), and the fear of small crawling organisims. A social phobia is "an irrational, excessive fear public scrutiny." (Nevid & Rathus, p. 263). Agoraphobia is the fear of crowded places.

There are 19 million or 8.7% of the population diagnosed with Phobias.

"Women are twice as likely to be affected as men."(adaa.org,2008)

Panic Disorder When people have experiences of acute, intense anxiety, they are said to have a panic disorder. Symptoms of people with a panic disorder would include strong physical problems, such as shortness of breath, heavy sweating, and strong beating of the heart. (Nevid & Rathus, p. 264).

There are 6 million people or 2.7% of the poplulation diagnosed with panic disorder.

"Women are twice as likely to be affected than men."(adaa.org,2008)

"Very high comorbidity rate with major depression."

Generalized Anxiety Disorder General anxiety disorder or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by uncontrollable worry about everyday things. The frequency, intensity, and duration of the worry are disproportionate to the actual source of worry, and such worry often interferes with daily functioning. GAD sufferers often uncontrollably worry over things such as their job, their finances, and the health of themselves and their family. However, GAD sufferers can also constantly abnormally worry over more mundane things such as deadlines for appointments, keeping the house clean, and whether or not their workspace is properly organized. For a diagnosis of GAD to be made, worry must be present more days than not for at least six months. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_anxiety_disorder)

There are 6.8 million or 3.1% of the population diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder.

"Women are twice as likely to be affected than men."

"Very likely to be comorbid with other disorders."(adaa.org,2008)

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychological disorder, specifically, an anxiety disorder. OCD is manifested in a variety of forms, but is most commonly characterized by a subject's obsessive drive to perform a particular task or set of tasks, compulsions commonly termed rituals. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder)

There are 2.2 million or 1.0% of the population diagnosed with Obessive-Compulsive Disorder.

"Equally common among men and women."

"One-third of affected adults first experienced symptoms in childhood."

"In 1990, OCD cost the U.S. 6% of the total $148 billion mental health bill." (adaa.org,2008)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is defined as "the development of disabling psychological symptoms following a traumatic event" (Bourne, 2001).

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to."

PTSD is more likely in adult women, and affects about 7.7 million people in the USA. There is a possibility of the disorder running in families. It is usually accompanied by other anxiety disorders. ( The National Institute of Mental Health, 2008).

Occurances of Anxiety Disorders in the Classroom Setting

Since anxiety is an appropriate response to a threat, then a student experiencing anxiety should be able to identify the threat and come up with a sensable strategy for coping with the help of a teacher, if necessary. With anxiety disorders, the threat may not be as easily identified, or an event did not seem to warrant such high levels of anxiety. In this case, a teacher should contact the parents/guardians about the matter, and hopefully they will seek professional help.

Symptoms of anxiety to watch for in the classroom: There are a number of signs of generalized anxiety disorder that exhibit in the classroom, according to Massachusetts General Hospital's Psychiatry Program and MADI Resource Center's web site. They include excessive worry about a variety of classroom situations, seeking teacher approval repeatedly, being unable to explain their worry, being unable to stop worrying, not wanting to come to school, low self-esteem and avoiding doing tasks and/or working with others. These may be seen in combination with other conditions such as ADHD, learning disorders and side effects from medication. The Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health agrees. They add that these children may lose friends and be left out of social activities. Many of these children are not noticed because they do not cause obvious classroom disruptions.

Interventions to lesson anxiety in the classroom: Massachusetts General Hospital's Psychiatry Program and MADI Resource Center also lists a number of corresponding interventions that can take place in the classroom to reduce excessive anxiety. They include having students check in with you at the beginning of the day to help transition from home to school, letting the student have extra time when beginning new activities, finding a safe place that this student can go to during the school day, praising any positive efforts taken to address anxiety issues, encouraging and monitoring small group activities, having alternate calming types of activities the child might engage in and encouraging any relaxation techniques they might know or use. In general, flexibility and a supportive environment are important to help relieve excessive anxiety in the classroom. The Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health adds the following suggestions. Be flexible about due dates for assignments, keep a daily schedule posted so students can easily see it, consider adaptations to lessons for this student when possible, keep the student's workload at a reasonable level, work with the student to make sure assignments are written down correctly and consider using technology when appropriate to help with motivation.

Treatments for Anxiety Disorders

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a very useful treatment for anxiety disorders. This type of treatment helps the person to change their thinking to diminish the fear (cognitive) and to change the way they react to the fear (behavior). As a teacher, it is helpful to be aware of the fears that a student may be anxious about to help them to diminish their reactions to the incident. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/anxiety.cfm#anx9

Medications - Medications do not cure anxiety disorders. The medications may diminish the severity of the reactions but people with anxiety disorders should really get professional help to learn to live with the disorder. http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/anxiety.cfm#anx9

Testimonies and Stories

In class, I have a senior student who has, what I would consider to be an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I don't know if he has been diagnosed as having this disorder, but certain events surrounding his day would fit the definition. When Joe comes into the band room, he puts his messy pile of books and papers next to his instrument. He then start to pace back and forth between roughly 10 feet. Joe doesn't seem to realize he is even pacing, until someone happens to walk closer to him and disrupt his train of thought. He then says "Oh, sorry!", as if he almost ran into the person. Whenever Joe walks up to ask me a question, he continues to pace until I verbally acknowledge that he is right in front of me. As he asks his question, he stumbles on his thought frequently. If he ever forgets his thought, he goes back to pacing until he remembers it.

We have a girl in our church that is very obsessive about germs. We have a time during church when we are asked to join hands and pray. This girl would always become uncomfortable and try to find ways to get out of holding hands. She even would talk her mom into going to 7:00 am mass when there were less people so she could sit by herself. Although we “more conventional” people look at these instances like they are taboo, we need to realize others have these anxieties and we have to help deal with them. -- Dale Donner

A few years ago a student in my class presented as a student with ADD; the student frequently was distracted, had difficulty with organizational tasks, could focus when subject matter was of particular interest, and received average to low grades despite good intelligence scores. After an initial screening for ADD proved borderline, additional testing was pursued. it turned out the student had an anxiety disorder. When the proper diagnosis was made, and accomodations were put in place the student became more successful in school. - Carolyn St

I am no stranger to panic attacks. For a long time, I believed panic attacks to be somewhat of a myth. I believed that people who claimed to have these attacks were just blowing some sort of stressful situation out of proportion. Need-less-to-say, I was proven wrong. In my junior year of college, I experienced my first panic attack. It was the day before my final in a class geared toward the teaching of mathematics to young children and I was feeling a little run-down. I had been studying for my final exam for weeks, but because 80% of my grade was dependent upon how I performed on this one exam, I was stressed beyond belief. I couldn't sleep...I couldn't eat...and was extremely fidgety. I chalked these physical manifestations of my stress up to nothing more than a little nervousness. However, the next morning...my symptoms worsened; I had a terrible headache and a knot in the back of my neck. My face was flushed and my body felt extremely warm. I remember getting ready for class and walking to the Education Building on campus where the test was being administered. As soon as I walked into the building, it was as if someone hit me in my stomach and knocked the wind right out of me. I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating and having to take extremely deep breaths just to get myself down the hallway. I kept trying to loosen my tee-shirt by tugging at the top seam. I felt these physical effects the entire time I was taking my exam. Following the test, I walked straight to the Health Center because, at this point, I was starting to get worried that something my seriously be wrong with me. After being examined by the nurse and a few doctors, it was ruled to be a "panic attack." Since this attack, I have learned, with the help of some anxiety medication, how to control these attacks and take measure to avoid them. Regardless of how I deal with these attacks now, I have a much better understanding of how stress can manifest itself into physical aliments...and hope that others out there realize just how devastating these attacks can be. On a side note, as a teacher now myself, I am definitely more aware of the stress and expectations placed on my students and try very hard to be fair and understanding in my assignments and grading policies for this reason. -D.Jacob (June 2006)

I currently have a student who has some sort of social phobia. We are not supposed to single her out. She literally gets sick to her stomach if she has to speak in front of the class. She is a smart girl, but this problem really holds her back. It is hard as a teacher to plan class activities with her in my class. I cannot make all students go to the board to workout problems, because they will ask why the girl doesn't have to. She has had to leave my class a few times to go vomit, because I called on her. - J. Herrmann

I have a student on my eighth grade team who has currently missed 80 days of school due to severe school anxiety. We have tried to work with her on her anxiety through meetings, peer counseling, changes in schedule, accommodations in the classroom which include breaks to the nurse when she feels anxious. This has not been an easy task and even after all of our attempts, she still continues to miss days of school every week. We have spoken to the mother, but unfortunately the mother is an enabler and does not force her to deal with the sitation as opposed to avoiding it. - A. Neighbors