Treatment

Patients with anxiety disorders are often accompanied by significant functional impairment and reduced quality of life. Psychotherapy and drug therapy are mainly used to relieve symptoms, or a combination of the two is more effective, but trial and error is needed to find the most suitable treatment method.

Psychotherapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

This is the most effective form of psychotherapy for people with anxiety disorders. Patients with anxiety disorders are prone to two kinds of erroneous logic: one is to overestimate the possibility of bad things happening; the other is to overly dramatic or catastrophically imagine the results of events.

The distorted perception of things by patients with anxiety disorders is one of the reasons for the long-term unhealed disease. Therefore, it is necessary to help patients change their bad perceptions and carry out cognitive reconstruction to achieve the purpose of treatment.

Supportive psychotherapy

Explain the knowledge about the disease to the patient through psychological education, reduce the patient's secondary anxiety about the disease, pass positive emotions to the patient through listening, encouragement, support and other skills, and improve treatment compliance.

Other treatments

In addition, some patients can help relieve anxiety symptoms through biofeedback therapy, relaxation exercises, and breathing control exercises.

Medical treatment

Due to large individual differences, there is no absolute best, fastest, or most effective medication. Except for commonly used over-the-counter drugs, you should choose the most appropriate drug based on your personal situation under the guidance of a doctor.

Patients can use the following drugs for treatment under the guidance of doctors.

Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepines have strong anti-anxiety effects, quick onset, can improve sleep, and have minor adverse reactions. Generally, the treatment time does not exceed 2 to 3 weeks, and patients with mild symptoms can use them intermittently.

If it is used in large quantities for a long time, it is easy to cause drug dependence and withdrawal symptoms when the drug is withdrawn suddenly. In addition, benzodiazepines have muscle relaxant effects, which may lead to falls and fractures in elderly patients.

Non-benzodiazepine anxiolytics

Non-benzodiazepine anxiolytics (such as buspirone, etc.), which are suitable for outpatient treatment, will gradually become a substitute for benzodiazepines. This type of drug has no obvious adverse reactions of sedation, drowsiness, and weight gain, but the effect of this drug is weak and the onset of action is slow.

Antidepressants

At present, antidepressants are the main choice for the clinical treatment of anxiety, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have become the first choice for the treatment of anxiety due to their safety and efficacy.

In addition, serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRI) and tricyclic drugs also have a good effect on the treatment of anxiety disorders, but the clinical application of tricyclic drugs is restricted due to their toxic and side effects on the heart. limit.