What is it about?
We think there are enough scientific and clinical evidences to support the idea that panic attacks are the results of the activation of a "true physical alarm". Body functions of panic patients are not so deranged to create and acute medical problem but are functioning in a different and more unstable way than in healthy persons. This weakness makes more ease the activation of body alarms and abnormal sensation that might trigger acute panic attacks. In this view anticipatory anxiety and phobic behaviors are the results of the activation of defense emotional and behavioral mechanisms in the brain.
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Why is it important?
Our new view on panic disorder support the idea that the first goal of any antipanic treatment non simply the disappearance of panic attacks but the regain of a physical sensations of wellbeing. This change in the goal of an anti-panic treatment will increase dramatically the rate of patients with full recovery. A second key point is the necessity to develop somatic treatments that will strengthen body physiology, in particular in cardiovascular, respiratory and postural domains.
Perspectives
In general psychiatry might remember that any disorders is strictly related to body function and that all treatments act both on the brain and the body. There should be a true overcome of Cartesio's error that divided mind/brain and body.....
Professor Giampaolo Robert Perna
Humanitas University
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This page is a summary of: Is panic disorder a disorder of physical fitness? A heuristic proposal, F1000Research, March 2018, Faculty of 1000, Ltd.,
DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.12788.1.
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