Voice analysis software may help diagnose PTSD in veterans

Voice analysis software can help detect post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans based on their speech, a study suggests.

Doctors have long understood that people with psychiatric disorders may speak differently than individuals who do not have mental health problems, researchers note in Depression and Anxiety. While some previous research points to the potential for distinct speech patterns among people with PTSD, it’s been unclear whether depression that often accompanies PTSD might explain the unique voice characteristics.

In the current study, voice analysis software detected which veterans had PTSD and which ones did not with 89 percent accuracy.

“Those with the PTSD talked more slowly (slower tongue movement), were more monotonous with fewer bursts of vocalization, were less animated and energetic (lifeless) in their speech, and had longer hesitations and a flatter tone,” said the lead study author.

“Our findings suggest that speech-based characteristics can be used to diagnose this disease, and with further refinement and validation, may be employed in the clinic in the near future,” the author said.

The team used an artificial intelligence program that “learns” how to classify individuals based on examples of speech.

First, researchers recorded hours-long interviews based on questions often asked by clinicians to diagnose PTSD. Altogether, they interviewed 53 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with PTSD related to their service as well as 78 veterans without the disease.

Then, they fed the recordings into voice analysis software developed by Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International, designers of the “Siri” App, to yield a total of 40,526 speech-based features captured in short spurts of talk.

The software linked patterns of specific voice features with PTSD, including less clear speech and a lifeless, metallic tone, both of which had long been reported anecdotally as helpful in diagnosis.

While the study did not explore the disease mechanisms behind PTSD, the theory is that traumatic events change brain circuits that process emotion and muscle tone that affect a person’s voice, the study team writes.

 The study was small, and it wasn’t designed to prove whether or how PTSD might directly cause changes in vocal patterns. It’s also possible that results might be different for people who experienced trauma unrelated to military service such as sexual assault or a natural disaster.

Other warning signs of PTSD may also be easier for family members to spot, said the Dr.                              

 “I think more general, observable indicators of trauma are more relevant in such cases,” a researcher who wasn’t involved in the study said. “Noticing that a family member exposed to a recent trauma appears to be unusually irritable, aggressive, hyper-vigilant, or reports nightmares, flashbacks of the trauma, or appears socially withdrawn or depressed ... would warrant a clinical assessment.”

But it may not be too far in the future that a tool like the one tested in the study could be one way to identify people who need to be evaluated for PTSD, said a U.S. Army Capt.

“In a perfect world, I see this technology used as an early warning tool for PTSD,” said the Army Capt. 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement

Newly Identified Memory Pathway Could Prevent PTSD

In a newly published study, a team of researchers show that blocking amygdala cells’ interactions with serotonin after trauma may prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.

About 8 million Americans suffer from nightmares and flashbacks to a traumatic event. This condition, known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), is particularly common among soldiers who have been in combat, though it can also be triggered by physical attack or natural disaster.

Studies have shown that trauma victims are more likely to develop PTSD if they have previously experienced chronic stress, and a new study from MIT may explain why. The researchers found that animals who underwent chronic stress prior to a traumatic experience engaged a distinctive brain pathway that encodes traumatic memories more strongly than in unstressed animals.

Blocking this type of memory formation may offer a new way to prevent PTSD, says Ki Goosens, the senior author of the study.

“The idea is not to make people amnesic but to reduce the impact of the trauma in the brain by making the traumatic memory more like a ‘normal,’ unintrusive memory,” says Goosens, an assistant professor of neuroscience and investigator in MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

The paper’s lead author is former MIT postdoc Michael Baratta.

Strong memories
Goosens’ lab has sought for several years to find out why chronic stress is so strongly linked with PTSD. “It’s a very potent risk factor, so it must have a profound change on the underlying biology of the brain,” she says.

To investigate this, the researchers focused on the amygdala, an almond-sized brain structure whose functions include encoding fearful memories. They found that in animals that developed PTSD symptoms following chronic stress and a traumatic event, serotonin promotes the process of memory consolidation. When the researchers blocked amygdala cells’ interactions with serotonin after trauma, the stressed animals did not develop PTSD symptoms. Blocking serotonin in unstressed animals after trauma had no effect.

“That was really surprising to us,” Baratta says. “It seems like stress is enabling a serotonergic memory consolidation process that is not present in an unstressed animal.”

Memory consolidation is the process by which short-term memories are converted into long-term memories and stored in the brain. Some memories are consolidated more strongly than others. For example, “flashbulb” memories, formed in response to a highly emotional experience, are usually much more vivid and easier to recall than typical memories.

Goosens and colleagues further discovered that chronic stress causes cells in the amygdala to express many more 5-HT2C receptors, which bind to serotonin. Then, when a traumatic experience occurs, this heightened sensitivity to serotonin causes the memory to be encoded more strongly, which Goosens believes contributes to the strong flashbacks that often occur in patients with PTSD.

“It’s strengthening the consolidation process so the memory that’s generated from a traumatic or fearful event is stronger than it would be if you don’t have this serotonergic consolidation engaged,” Baratta says.

“This study is a very nice dissection of the mechanism by which chronic stress seems to activate new pathways not seen in unstressed animals,” says Mireya Nadal-Vicens, medical director of the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not part of the research team.

Drug intervention
This memory consolidation process can take hours to days to complete, but once a memory is consolidated, it is very difficult to erase. However, the findings suggest that it may be possible to either prevent traumatic memories from forming so strongly in the first place, or to weaken them after consolidation, using drugs that interfere with serotonin.

“The consolidation process gives us a window in which we can possibly intervene and prevent the development of PTSD. If you give a drug or intervention that can block fear memory consolidation, that’s a great way to think about treating PTSD,” Goosens says. “Such an intervention won’t cause people to forget the experience of the trauma, but they might not have the intrusive memory that is ultimately going to cause them to have nightmares or be afraid of things that are similar to the traumatic experience.”

The Food and Drug Administration has already approved a drug called agomelatine that blocks this type of serotonin receptor and is used as an antidepressant.

Such a drug might also be useful to treat patients who already suffer from PTSD. These patients’ traumatic memories are already consolidated, but some research has shown that when memories are recalled, there is a window of time during which they can be altered and reconsolidated. It may be possible to weaken these memories by using serotonin-blocking drugs to interfere with the reconsolidation process, says Goosens, who plans to begin testing that possibility in animals.

The findings also suggest that the antidepressant Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are commonly given to PTSD patients, likely do not help and may actually worsen their symptoms. Prozac enhances the effects of serotonin by prolonging its exposure to brain cells. While this often helps those suffering from depression, “There’s no biological evidence to support the use of SSRIs for PTSD,” Goosens says.

“The consolidation of traumatic memories requires this serotonergic cascade and we want to block it, not enhance it,” she adds. “This study suggests we should rethink the use of SSRIs in PTSD and also be very careful about how they are used, particularly when somebody is recently traumatized and their memories are still being consolidated, or when a patient is undergoing cognitive behavior therapy where they’re recalling the memory of the trauma and the memory is going through the process of reconsolidation.”

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement 

Study suggests chronic opioid treatment may increase PTSD risk

Researchers have found that long-term (chronic) treatment with opioids, such as morphine, prior to trauma may increase post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) risk.

The findings, published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, which link chronic opioid treatment before a traumatic event with responses to subsequent stressful events, may suggest a possible mechanism underlying the frequent co-occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and opioid dependence.

"Our data are the first to show a possible effect of opioids on future fear learning, which may suggest that a person with a history of opioid use may become more susceptible to the negative effects of stress," said a researcher.

"Also, this ability of opioids to increase PTSD-like symptoms far outlasted the direct effects of the drug or withdrawal from the drug, suggesting that the effect may continue even after opioid treatment has stopped," he added. Previous research has shown that PTSD increases the risk of opioid dependence, but whether opioid dependence may also increase PTSD risk remained unclear.

Using an established model of fear learning in mice, researchers assessed the potential impact of chronic opioid treatment on subsequent development of PTSD-like behaviours. They found that mice that had been treated with opioids and later experienced stress showed more pronounced post-stress reactions.

At the beginning of the study, mice were treated with morphine or saline for eight days, followed by a week of drug cessation. Both groups of mice - morphine-treated mice and saline-treated controls (22 and 24 mice, respectively) - were then subdivided into trauma and non-trauma groups.

They were transferred to a chamber where animals in the trauma group received a series of mild foot shocks. A day later, both groups of animals were returned to the chamber to assess their memory of the traumatic event.

"We have called this the trauma because the acute stressors, the foot shocks, is able to produce lasting fear and anxiety-like behaviours, such as freezing," the researcher said.

On the subsequent day, mice from both the trauma and non-trauma groups were transferred to a new environment and exposed to a mild stressors (a milder foot shock), before being returned to that environment for eight minutes on the fourth day of the experiment.

The authors found no behavioural differences between morphine-treated and control mice following the initial trauma. However, morphine-treated mice showed more pronounced freezing when returned to the second environment after having been exposed to the mild stress.

The findings suggest that chronic exposure to opioids before - but not after - a traumatic event occurs, impacts fear learning during subsequent stressful events.

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement     

PTSD treatment can also reduce risk of type 2 diabetes

Treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can lower the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, suggests a study.

"Some long-term chronic health conditions associated with PTSD may be less likely to occur among patients who experience clinically meaningful symptom reduction either through treatment or spontaneous improvement," said  a professor in Family and Community Medicine.

PTSD affects up to 12 per cent of civilians and nearly 30 per cent of the veteran population. Those with PTSD are at risk for other health issues and improvement in PTSD symptoms is associated with parallel improvements in depression, emotional well-being, sleep, blood pressure, and general physical health.

PTSD is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, which may be explained by the high prevalence of obesity, glucose dysregulation, inflammation, metabolic syndrome and depression among those diagnosed with PTSD versus those without PTSD.

This retrospective cohort study reviewed the Veterans Health Affairs medical record data from 2008 to 2015. The researchers randomly selected 5,916 cases from among a veteran patient population aged 18 to 70 who had more than two visits to PTSD specialty care between 2008 and 2012. The patients were followed through until 2015.

After applying eligibility criteria, 1,598 patients with PTSD and free of diabetes risk were available for analysis.

Clinically meaningful symptom reduction is a decrease of 20 points on the PTSD Checklist score. The research found the results were independent of numerous demographic, psychiatric, and physical comorbidities.

The sample was 84.3 percent male, 66 percent Caucasian and 22 percent African-American. The mean age of the patients was 42.

"In patients with only PTSD, clinically meaningful PCL decrease is associated with a lower risk for diabetes and in patients with PTSD and depression, we found improvement in PTSD was coupled with a decrease in depression," the Prof. said.

"Thus the decreased risk of type 2 diabetes appears to follow large PTSD symptoms decrease and in patients with both PTSD and depression, improvement in both conditions may be necessary to reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes."

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                       https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                     FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                   

                                https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com

6 Tips to Support a Loved One Suffering from PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a crippling mental condition that has long been associated with military service, but the truth is that it can affect anyone and can be triggered by any number of traumatic experiences, such as sexual abuse, being the victim of a physical attack, childhood trauma and the sudden death of a loved one, among many other potential catalysts. It's not the objective strength of the experience, but the SUBJECTIVE event the person believes they experienced and so many factors go into creating a traumatic event.

A person suffering from PTSD may experience vivid flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares, nervous breakdowns triggered by some cue that is in some way related to the traumatic event, avoidance of certain social situations, irritability and dramatic fright responses, such as exaggerated flight or fight responses to being spooked (becoming panicked or lashing at others).

Living with PTSD can be a major impediment to a normal daily work routine, but much more so in relationships with loved ones. Being in a relationship with a partner suffering from PTSD can be quite the emotional trial for anyone, as you can feel a lot of frustration relating to your loved one’s new vulnerabilities, listlessness or willingness to open up to you. As your loved one’s mood swings wildly from anger to crying sessions, it may seem at times like you’re living with a complete stranger.

It’s important to understand that your loved one did not choose any of this. They didn’t choose to experience trauma, and they certainly didn’t choose to have PTSD. Blaming them or feeling resentment towards them for something that is completely out of their control will never help matters, and while trauma does change a person, they are still, at their core and being, the person you fell in love with.

Recovery from PTSD can be tricky. Trauma is often compared to scarring. The trauma will always remain, leaving a sensitive patch on the soul, but the degree to which it affects our lives should decrease if given the opportunity to heal properly, and as their partner, it is your task to make sure they get that opportunity to heal.
So what can you do to make sure the person you love heals? 

1. Be Patient

Our society can be very unforgiving towards people suffering from mental illnesses. We tend to allot people a grieving or recuperation period after which we expect them to “get over it” and get back to normal. Your loved one is likely feeling this condescending pressure to go on with their life as if nothing happened on all fronts, and so it is upon you to create the one safe place where their pain is treated seriously and where they can deal with it on their terms. Don’t rush them, don’t signal in any way that you’re waiting for them to get better, just stand by them.  

2. Don’t Take It Personally

PTSD is often characterized by mood swings, anger, and social withdrawal, and often, when you live with someone suffering from PTSD, you can feel like the target of your partner’s irritable behavior, or even feel like the person you love is purposely shutting you out. It’s critical that you understand none of this behavior has anything to do with you or your qualities as a person or as a partner, and so the last thing you should do is take offense. The worst behaviors often manifest in places or with people the traumatized person feels safest. If your partner is distant, angry or in an explosive mood, stay calm, ask how you can help them and give them space if they need it.

3. Listen

When your partner talks about their trauma, listen and do your best to withhold judgment. It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard it before, or if something they say offends your sensibilities. Listen to them and be supportive. Talking about the thing that makes them hurt is a natural way of coping with it and processing the pain to the point that it becomes manageable. 

4. Join Them in Therapy

PTSD can be the loneliest place in the world and having a partner that doesn’t “get it” can make it so much worse. Consider joining your partner in therapy sessions, so you can get an unguarded look into what they’re going through. In fact, as caring for a person suffering PTSD can be rough on you, too, consider couples’ counseling. A couple doesn’t need to be on the brink of divorce to seek professional help that will help them function better as a team, and if there ever was a crisis that required this kind of therapy, this is it. 

5. Manage Triggers

Learn what can trigger a depressive bout or emotional breakdown in your loved one. These can be certain conversation topics, sights or sounds that can evoke the trauma, dates, people or places that remind them of the event, pressure, and situations that are linked in some way to the trauma (a funeral, seeing a car accident, watching soldiers in battle on TV, etc.). Learn how to avoid these triggers with your partner and try to learn what calms them down when they’re in this vulnerable state.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                                                FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                       https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/                                                                                                                     FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                   

                                https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com