Chechen syndrome: symptoms and methods of treatment

More recently, military psychiatry has a new diagnosis - the "Chechen syndrome".But such a disease did not arise out of nowhere. Earlier, such a syndrome was called Afghan, and before that - Vietnamese. To date, it is noted that all fighters who have gone through not only the Chechen campaign, but also visited any other hot spots, suffer more or less from this disease.

It is no coincidence that in 2001, according to the decree of the President of Russia, a new army post appeared in our country - a military psychologist, which is mandatory for each regiment.

The realities of the modern world

The entry into the 21st century was accompanied by the great hopes of humanity. People believed in the rapid development of medicine, various computer technologies, as well as the newest ways to improve and facilitate life. However, as practice shows, despite the rapid development of technology, an increasing number of inhabitants of our planet suffer from emerging new ailments, among which are previously unknown disorders of the mental and nervous system.

What is the cause of the spread of such diagnoses? This is an unfavorable political, criminal, and also military situation, which is observed in the world community. It is she who is an indispensable medium that gives impetus to the development of such diseases.

Even with a high degree of stability of the psyche, people are worried about their country and family. They are also worried about acquaintances who are in a difficult life situation. And lately psychologists have been increasingly observing the presence of such a diagnosis as the "syndrome of war".And such a disease does not bypass the most diverse continents of our planet. In medicine, such a syndrome is classified as PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Its widespread disease is due to the unstable military situation in the world.

Who suffers from the syndrome of war?

Among patients of psychotherapists one can meet not only those people who took direct part in hostilities. Families often come to specialists, as well as close people who are worried about the fate of their native person who has returned from a hot spot.

Such a syndrome affects ordinary people who have seen enough of the cruelty of the war and survive it. This is a peaceful population, and volunteers, and doctors.

Causes of

The syndrome of war is the consequence of finding a person in an acute stressful situation. These are events that go beyond the limits of his life experience, which put too much stress on the emotional and volitional components of the psyche.

Symptoms of this disease are manifested, as a rule, instantly. However, sometimes a person for some time does not notice the signs of his mental disorder. This is due to the blocking of the brain unwanted moments of memories. But there is a certain time, and people who have returned from the war can not help noticing more and more active symptoms, which are a backward reaction to an emergency.

The long-lasting syndrome does not allow a person to adapt normally to an already forgotten for him peaceful life and can cause a sense of uselessness, misunderstanding and social loneliness.

A bit of history

Mention of the disease, which was caused by severe stressful situations, found in the records of the first doctors and philosophers of ancient Greece. Similar phenomena took place in the Roman soldiers. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress were described in great detail in their writings by Herodotus and Lucretius. They noted that the soldiers who passed the war were irritable and uneasy. In addition, they constantly recurred memories of the most difficult moments of battles they experienced.

And only in the 19th century.scientific research of PTSD was carried out, after which all manifestations of pathology, as well as its clinical symptoms, were systematized and combined into one syndrome. Here belong:

- increased excitability;
- the desire to avoid a situation that resembles a traumatic event;
- high predisposition to aggression and to spontaneous actions;
- fixation on the situation that led to injury.

For the 20th century.various natural and social cataclysms, as well as wars, are characteristic. All this provided the medical field with an extensive field for researching psychological pathology, including posttraumatic syndrome.

After the First World War, German psychiatrists were diagnosed with PTSD in veterans, whose symptoms worsened over the years. The echo of the war responded to them with a state of constant anxiety and nervousness, as well as nightmares. All this worn out people, not allowing them to live peacefully.

Post-traumatic stress, received in the course of the military conflict, was studied by specialists for several decades. At the same time, extensive material for such research was provided not only by the First, but also by the Second World War. In those years, various authors called the symptoms of such a disorder in different ways. Such a diagnosis sounded in their writings as "military fatigue" and "military neurosis", "combat exhaustion" and "post-traumatic neurosis".

For the first time the systematization of such symptoms was compiled in 1941 by Cardiner. This psychologist called this state "a chronic military neurosis" and developed in his works the ideas of Freud, expressing the opinion that the inability to adapt in peace conditions arises because of the central physiourosis, having a physiological and psychological nature.

The final formulation of the interpretation of PTSD was made in the 80s of the last century, when as a result of numerous studies a rich material on this problem was collected.

Special interest in this field of research was again manifested at the end of the war in Vietnam. Practically 75-80% of the total number of US military who took part in the hostilities, easily adapted in a peaceful environment.

The war did not worsen their physical and mental health. But 20-25% of the soldiers could not cope with the consequences of the stress experienced. People with the syndrome of war often ended their lives with suicide and committed acts of violence. They could not find a common language with others and establish normal relations at work and in the family. With the passage of time, this state only worsened, although outwardly the man seemed sufficiently prosperous. What are the symptoms that indicate that a former soldier has Vietnamese, Chechen or Afghan cider?

Obsessive memories of

This is one of the specific system-forming signs of the Chechen syndrome. A person is accompanied by obsessive memories of a traumatic event, for which the emergence of unusually bright pictures from the past, with a fragmentary character. Thus there is a horror and alarm, melancholy and helplessness. By their emotional strength, these feelings are not inferior to those that survived a man in the war.

Such seizures are accompanied by various disorders in the autonomic nervous system. This may be an increase in blood pressure and increased heart rate, the appearance of copious cold sweat, malfunctioning of the heart rate, etc.

Sometimes the echo of war responds to the so-called flashback symptomatology. It seems to the patient that the past seems to break into his current peaceful life. This state is accompanied by illusions, which are pathological perceptions of the actually existing stimuli. At the same time, the Chechen syndrome is manifested by the fact that the patient is able to hear people screaming, for example, in the clatter of wheels or to distinguish the silhouettes of enemies at the sight of twilight shadows.

However, there are more severe cases. Symptoms of the Chechen syndrome at the same time are expressed simultaneously in auditory and visual hallucinations. The patient, for example, can see already lost people, hear their voices, feel the whiff of hot wind, etc.

Flashback symptoms are manifested in increased aggressiveness, impulsive movements and suicide attempts. The influx of hallucinations and illusions often arise as a result of nervous overstrain, the use of drugs or alcohol, prolonged insomnia or have no apparent cause. Similar are the seizures themselves, during which obsessive memories are manifested. Very often they arise spontaneously, but sometimes their development is facilitated by a meeting with this or that stimulus, which is a kind of trigger key, leading to reminders of a catastrophe. It can be characteristic smells and sounds, tactile and gustatory sensations, as well as any object familiar to tragic events.

Avoiding anything that reminds of a stressful situation

The Chechen syndrome is characterized by the fact that the patient quickly enough is able to establish the relationship that exists between the keys and the occurrence of seizures. In this regard, the former soldiers seek to avoid any reminder of the extreme situation that has happened to them.

Sleep Disorders

In the post-war years, former night soldiers suffering from PTSD have nightmares. The plot of dreams is a stressful situation. At the same time, a person sees an unusually bright picture that resembles an episode of obsessive memories that takes place during wakefulness. A dream is accompanied by a sense of helplessness and a keen sense of horror, emotional pain, and disturbances in the functioning of the vegetative system. In the most severe cases, such dreams follow one another and are interrupted by short periods of awakening. This leads to the fact that the patient loses the ability to distinguish his dream from the existing reality.

Most often, nightmares cause former soldiers to seek help from a specialist. But apart from this symptom, sleep disorders in patients are expressed in many other failures of its rhythm. This is a difficulty in falling asleep and daytime sleepiness, night insomnia, as well as superficial and anxious sleep.

Feeling of guilt

This is also no less common symptom of the syndrome of war. Typically, such a feeling the former soldiers seek to rationalize, seeking for him some explanation. Patients often blame themselves for the death of friends, greatly exaggerating their own responsibility and engaging in self-flagellation and self-incriminations. At the same time a person has feelings of moral, mental and physical inferiority.

Overstrain of the nervous system

Patients to whom the military psychologist diagnosed the "Chechen syndrome" are constantly in a state of alertness. This is partly due to the fear of obsessive memories. Nevertheless, nervous tension occurs and even when images from the past practically do not excite patients. The patients themselves complain of constant anxiety and the fact that any rustle causes them inexplicable fear.

CNS Depletion

A patient who is constantly in a nervous strain, suffering from sleep disorders and exhausting seizures of obsessive memories, becomes sick with cerebral disease. This disease in its clinical manifestation is expressed by signs characteristic of CNS depletion, namely:

- decreased mental and physical performance;
- a weakening of focus and attention;
- increased irritability;
- reduced ability to work creatively.

Psychopathic disorders of

Over time, many patients diagnosed with the "Chechen syndrome" often begin to exhibit such character traits as:

- alienation from society;
- attacks of aggression;
- anger;
- selfishness;
- addiction to bad habits;
- reduced ability to empathy and love.

Disorders of the ability to social adaptation of

The presence of all the above symptoms leads to the fact that the patient becomes difficult to adapt to society. It is difficult for these patients to get along with people, they are conflicting and often go on break with their social connections( they stop contacting their colleagues, friends and relatives).

The arising of loneliness is aggravated by anhedonia. This is a condition where a person loses the ability to get pleasure from his previously loved activities. Patients with the Chechen syndrome sometimes completely immerse themselves in their own world, not interested in work or hobbies. Such people do not build a pani for their future life, because they do not live by the future, but by the past.

Treatment of

It is in connection with the violation of the person's ability to social adaptation that patients with PTSD very rarely seek help from specialists. People who have gone through hot spots are more likely to self-medicate, fleeing nightmares and obsessive states with antidepressants, sleeping pills and tranquilizers.

However, at the present time modern medicine has quite effective drug therapy for such conditions. It is carried out under the condition of the available indications, namely:

- nerve strain;
- anxiety;
- sharp decrease in mood;
- frequent seizures of obsessive memories;
- the influx of hallucinations and illusions.

At the same time, drug therapy is always used in conjunction with psycho-correction and psychotherapy, since the effect of sedatives is clearly insufficient to stop the expressed symptomatology of PTSD.

To those who suffer from obsessive conditions and who are suffering from insomnia, what to do? Refer to a specialist who will prescribe the most popular antidepressants in the group of selective inhibitors. These are such medications as "Prozac", "Zoloft" and some others. Their reception allows you to get a wide range of effects, including a general increase in mood, the return of the desire for life, the elimination of anxiety, stabilization of the vegetative nervous system. In addition, such treatment of the Chechen syndrome can reduce the number of seizures that cause obsessive memories, irritability, cravings for drugs and alcohol, and reduce the likelihood of aggression. In the first days of taking such drugs, the likelihood of an opposite effect is high, in the form of a certain increase in anxiety. In addition to antidepressants, patients can also be prescribed tranquilizers such as Seduxen and Fenazepam.

When is insomnia especially troubled, what should I do? In the most severe cases, tranquilizers are assigned to the benzodiazepine group. Such drugs as "Xanax" and "Tranxen" allow not only to normalize sleep, but also to eliminate the state of anxiety, accompanied by pronounced vegetative disorders.

Complete treatment of the Chechen syndrome is impossible without such an obligatory component as psychotherapy. Good results in this case allow us to give special sessions during which the patient again experiences the extreme situation he has already gone through. At the same time he tells about the details of this event to a professional psychologist. Another popular method is a session of behavioral psychotherapy, during which the patient gradually accustoms to the existence of trigger keys that initiate fits of obsessive memories.