AGORAPHOBIA

Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia

Introduction

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss a patient with agoraphobia disease. The patient to be discussed in this paper is a 50 years old man named Henry, who is suffering from the symptoms of agoraphobia.

Symptoms

Henry was suffering from agoraphobia symptoms, which means that he was facing with the following symptoms:

Fear of going out alone / in the home or away from it.

Fear of situations or places, where escape might be difficult or embarrassing. For example, a football stadium or a packed movie where they block the exit or there is difficult to "flee" immediately.

Fear of places or situations that, in the case of having a panic attack, may not be available for immediate help

Afraid to travel by train, plane, car or bus. In this case, the fear is usually proportional to the distance that is home or place where people feel safe. The further away from "home" more fear or distress.

Fear of crossing the street

Fear of being in the middle of crowds or traffic jams, where the return to a "safe" place (usually home) is difficult to perform immediately.

Maladaptive Behaviors

Henry has adopted different maladaptive behaviors related to these symptoms. The leading behavior was avoidance, which means that when he first time faced the symptoms of agoraphobia, he started avoiding these situations. In order to deal with the agoraphobia disorder, Henry also started using substance drugs, which means that he started using alcoholic drinks to avoid the symptoms.

Historical Information, Family history, Past Medical history and Developmental History

In Henry's family, his father was also a victim of agoraphobia; therefore, it may be said that this is heredity problem. In his medical history he never had any illness or he never faced any phobia. It is the first time that he is dealing with any phobia. With the passage of time when he started treatment of agoraphobia, he started recovering.

RV Scenarios

First scenario: At Home.

a) In this first scenario, the patient is in his living room and hears a message on the machine where you get instructions on what you have to buy in department stores.

b) Leaving the room is a very long corridor and near the end is the elevator; it has been designed so that it offers various possibilities related to agoraphobic fear, taking into account various factors (number of people standing and possibilities of blocking the elevator)

Second stage: the Bus.

In this scenario, the patient is a bus stop and boards the bus, climbing can move wherever and however, you want to look and can see people inside the bus, where it circulates the bus, people climbing going down. Also in this scenario can be scaled aspects such as the number of people on the bus, travel time, number of stops made.

Third stage: The Metro.

This scenario is very similar to the first, only now the patient is in a subway station waiting for the subway, but the actions you perform are the same and can be scaled the ...