The most common anxiety attacks are Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Phobic Disorders, Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and Stress-related Disorders. Generalized Anxiety Attacks Generalized Anxiety Disorders (GAD) is characterized by anxiety symptoms that are present for much of
time and not restricted to specific situations.
Generalized anxiety often accompanies phobias and is extremely common in people who are depressed. It can also be caused by physical illness, such as an overactive thyroid gland, or result from emotional response to a serious illness such as a heart attack.
Some 15 per cent of people with GAD have a hereditary background, it is likely that their brother, sister or a parent are suffering from a similar problem. This disorder reflects an inherited tendency to attacks or effect of surrounding environment. Two thirds of sufferers are women.
Panic Disorders In panic disorders, repeated panic attacks occur unpredictably and often without obvious causes. They consist of severe anxiety attacks with physical and psychological symptoms.
Physical symptoms can include any of general symptoms of anxiety described above, and more often that of hyperventilation syndrome.
Psychological symptoms typically include dread (particularly of extreme events such as dying), having a seizure, losing control or 'going mad'.
To sufferer, attacks feel as if they are going on for a long time, but actually they tend to last only a few minutes, and at their longest they last around an hour. Panic attack is common in depression, GAD or agoraphobia.
Phobic Disorders A phobia is a fear that is out of proportion to situation that causes it and cannot be explained easily. Simple phobias are phobias that are specific to objects or situations. Specific phobias include:
Animal phobia (eg dogs, snakes, frogs, cockroach, spiders and other insects) these phobias often start in childhood, usually before age of seven years.
Blood and injury phobia: fear of blood tests or sight of blood that results in fainting.
