**7. References**


report psychosomatic health questionnaire, SCL-90, CMI (Cornell medical index) and SSRS (social support rating scale). The two groups were similar in physical injuries and mental trauma caused by the earthquake. But those in RC selected a different life style from 8 years before when RC was founded. After 8 years, those in RC had better psychosomatic health, lower SCL-90 score or CMI score. None of them had PTSD, while 6 of those remained in PH had this diagnosis. This study revealed that election of a more mature way of life is helpful to psychosomatic health of paraplegic patients caused by

This chapter has summarized the current status of information on mental disorder caused by experiencing or witnessing a life threatening severe earthquake. The traumatic earthquake was very tragic. Each earthquake phase has different mental health problems*.*  From this chapter, we can conclude that the mental disorders due to the earthquake include

[1] Zhang Ben, Wang Xueyi,Sun Hexiang et al. Long Term Effect of Tangshan Earthquake

[2] Wang Xueyi, Wang Jingjing, Zhang Ben, et al. Psychological status in adolescents who

[3] Wang XueYi, Shi Shaoxia, Zhang Ben, et al. Adult schizotypal personality

[4] Zhang Ben, Wang Xueyi, Sun Hexiang, et al. A Study on the Prevalence of Neurosis and

[5] Zhang Ben, Zhang Junzeng, Wang Xueyi, et al. A Study Of Mental And Physical Health

[6] Jin Guixing, Wang Xueyi, Wang Lan, et al. Study on memory function impairment and

[7] Zhang Ben, Wang Xueyi, Sun Hexiang, et al. Posttraumatic stress disorder in orphans

[8] Stein, P. & Kendell, J. (2004). Psychological trauma and the developing brain: Neurology

on Mental and Physical Health of It's Suffers. Chinese Mental Health Journal 1998

experienced Tangshan earthquake during fetal period[J].Chinese Journal of Clinical

characteristics of a fetus exposed to Tangshan earthquake in its sixth month of gestation[J]; Journal of Clinical Rehabilitative Tissue Engineering Research;

Its Cause over 20-years After the Violent Earthquake in Tangshan[J]; Nervous

Of Retired Officer Experience Tangshan Earthquike Of Kailuan Coal Mine[J]; Heath

structural MRI in posttraumatic stress disorder. Chin J Nerv Ment Dis

caused by Tangshan earthquake. CHINESE JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY,

based interventions for troubled children. New York, NY: Hawthorne

depression, cognitive function disorder, PTSD, schizotypical personality.

earthquake.

**6. Summary** 

**7. References** 

12 (4): 200-202..

Rehabilitation,2006,10(6):42-45.

Diseases and Mental Hygjene,2001,1(1):8-11.

Psychology Journal.1999,7(1):51-54.

Maltreatment and Trauma Press.

2007,11(39):7838-7841.

2011,37(5):269-272.

2000,33:111-114.


Posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD is an extreme psycho-physiological response disorder that may occur in individuals who are exposed to a potentially traumatic event that can involve the subjectively profound *threat of loss*… of life or limb. To receive a PTSD diagnosis, reactions to the catastrophic or traumatic stressor must involve profound fear, helplessness, or horror. Furthermore, such individuals have to experience symptoms from three separate yet co-occurring symptom clusters. These clusters or domains include: 1) intrusive recollections or the re-experiencing of the event with accompanied intense psychological distress or physiologic reactivity; 2) persistent avoidance of activities, thoughts as well as feelings associated with the traumatic event; and, 3) increased or extreme arousal that may include an exaggerated startle response, hypervigilance, or insomnia (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Uddin et al., 2010) To justify a PTSD diagnosis, symptoms must be present for at least one month, and impair an individual's interpersonal, occupational, or social functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). PTSD has been described as a specific phenotype that develops as the result of a failure to contain the normal stress response (Yehuda & LeDoux, 2007), resulting in dysregulation of the hypothalamic– pituitary–adrenal or HPA axis, a major stress response system of the body that interacts with the immune system to maintain homeostasis (Wong, 2002). PTSD-affected and unaffected individuals have distinct expression patterns in genes involved in immune activation (Segman et al., 2005; Zieke et al., 2007), and in genes that encode neural and endocrine proteins (Segman et al., 2005; Yehuda et al., 2009). Above all, PTSD is both an external and internal experience; that is, PTSD is an external catastrophic or traumatic event

Once upon a time in the west, PTSD was known as a psychiatric disorder associated most frequently with Vietnam War veterans as exemplified by the label of *post-Vietnam syndrome*  (Friedman, 1981). This, despite the fact that similar war-related traumatic experiences of American soldiers who served in Vietnam can be found as far back as Homer's epic account of Achilles in *The Iliad* (Shay, 1994). Yet, while long-term psychiatric conditions were witnessed in previous war veterans, PTSD failed to permeate public consciousness until Vietnam. Indeed, Mezey and Robbins point out that PTSD has socio-economic and political implications since veterans are the group most associated with this disorder (2001). With

**1. Introduction** 

and an internal psycho-physiological experience.

**1.1 Trauma goes public** 

A.M. Tacón

 *USA* 

*Texas Tech University,* 

[26] Roxanne Dryden-Edwards. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

http:// www. medicinenet. com/posttraumatic\_stress\_disorder(2011). **11** 

A.M. Tacón *Texas Tech University, USA* 
