Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia translated from Greek means “fear of the marketplace” and designates fear of remaining away from home in unsafe conditions. Agoraphobia can also be defined as fear of open or public places. Agoraphobia is a distinct group of fears that includes various kinds of phobia and its characteristic feature is the avoidance of leaving home, visiting shops, fear of crowds and crowded public places. As a matter of fact, patients with agoraphobia avoid places where the multitude of unknown people or the situations could make difficult a quick and unobserved flight in the event of panic attacks. Patients suffering from agoraphobia are also afraid to travel alone in various kinds of transport. Although the patients avoid being alone, they prefer to choose accompanying persons whom it is not necessary to explain the agoraphobic behavior. Agoraphobia is first and foremost disabling disease that may prevent patients from performing many kinds of activity. Panic attacks and panic symptoms are frequent feature of episodes occurring as present ones or having happened in the past. Depression and symptoms of obsession as well as social phobias are also frequently found by the doctors as additional characteristics. Avoidance of the phobic situation is usually very important for the sufferers and some patients with agoraphobia reduce their anxiety due to the fact that they are able to avoid the phobic situations.
Symptoms of agoraphobia:
Doctors detect the distinct and constantly appearing fear at least in two of the following situations or avoiding of these situations:
-crowds;
-public places;
-travel alone;
-movements outside the house.
The symptoms of anxiety appear only or usually in the situations causing the fear or at the thoughts about them.
At the beginning of the disease, at least in one case no less than 2 of the first 14 symptoms of anxiety in the frightening situations should be presented simultaneously, and one of them must be vegetative one.
Significant emotional distress is a characteristic feature of the urge towards the avoidance of the situation or symptoms of anxiety; at the same time the patient realizes that they are excessive or unreasonable.
Differential diagnosis of agoraphobia:
The fear of situations or avoiding them is not determined by delirium, hallucinations or other disorders, such as organic mental disorders, the schizophrenia and the disorders related to it, affective disorders, or obsessive-compulsive disorders, and do not result from cultural beliefs.
Agoraphobia variants:
Presence or absence of panic disorders can be additionally determined with the use of the fifth sign:
- without panic disorder;
- with panic disorder.
In the case without panic disorder the gravity can be assessed by the indication of the degree of avoiding the frightening situations taking into consideration the specific cultural conditions. In the case with panic disorder the gravity can be assessed by calculating the number of panic attacks.
Agoraphobia is one of the most widespread phobic disorders where phobia therapy is realized by means of exposure techniques. The patient is advised to train exposure on a daily basis. Doctors recommend remaining in a phobic situation for at least an hour. In this case the anxiety may attain its climax and then fall down. The patient is advised to gain maximum advantage of the fears instead of running away from them. The patient is recommended compel himself to take part in various activities such as shopping, visiting exhibitions, communicating to other people that are considered to be normal in those situations. Doctors say that perseverance and tolerance are indispensable for getting rid of phobias in this way.