“When we encounter a situation of extreme stress, everyone reacts a little differently. There is a wide range of reactions. It can range from a state of extreme concentration of a person on himself – not talking, not communicating, not wanting to eat and drink. And it can be the opposite of concentration: talking constantly, a lot of mobility. There can also be a state of what we call dissociation or disconnection, when a person suddenly does not know where he is, or feels like he is in a movie or in a dream. A person who enters An anxiety attack can also feel a high pulse, shortness of breath, a feeling of pain in the chest, almost like a heart attack. The whole range of reactions is legitimate.”
There are extreme cases of disconnection or convergence, Prof. Kariboi points out, in which it is simply desirable to disconnect the person from the stressful environment. “Sometimes, going to the ER calms people down,” he says. “In certain situations, it is necessary to get primary treatment of sedation, of normalizing the situation. For example, telling the patient that this is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. When a missile falls near you, it is not a normal situation. So it is okay to feel that you are going to die in a moment and to be extremely anxious. Part of the treatment is to say that this is a normal reaction, that it is okay.”
In the next step, Dr. Sharist describes, after ruling out a medical problem, we move on to deal with the issue of anxiety: “We have some rules by which we act. First of all, we give the patient encouragement and confirmation that currently no physical problem has been found. calms the person down. If possible, put it in a quiet environment. In each of the stages of treatment, we try to make a separation between the anxiety victims and the patients who were physically harmed and patients who came because of other medical problems. We are trying to create a protected, quiet environment for them, with social workers, with a medical team watching over them. It is also important that throughout this time there is someone with a medical eye on them to see that there really is no change, or that they have not missed a medical problem that develops over time and worsens. Usually, if we can help with sedation and conversations, we avoid drug treatment. But if the symptoms are really very severe, there is medication that we can give, for example, pills that will help the patient a little to overcome this stressful event.”
An anxiety attack, says Dr. Daniels, has a beginning, a middle and an end. “For the most part, the anxiety attack will pass after a short time. However, if a person really feels physical difficulties, he should undergo a medical evaluation,” she says.