Clinical Features - Panic Disorder
Panic disorder is characterised by the occurrence of discrete attacks of feelings of intense fear or/and anxiety.
Attacks tend to be unpredictable, of sudden onset and last up to 30 minutes or less. The person often experiences an imminent sense of danger or doom and an urge to escape. The person also experiences a number of bodily symptoms such as a pounding heart, chest discomfort, nausea, light-headedness and dizziness. They may also fear loss of control, that they are going out of their mind or that they are going to die. The term panic attack is used to describe these episodes in which physical symptoms are prominent. Other symptoms include shaking, choking feelings, “butterflies in the stomach”, feelings of unreality, numbness or tingling in the limbs, chills and flushes.
Panic attacks may occur in isolation. These are often however, found in other anxiety disorders such as agoraphobia, simple phobias and mixed anxiety/depressive disorder.
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