Police officers with TBIs & PTSD, cause and effect Research Paper

Police officers with TBIs & PTSD, cause and effect - Research Paper Example Similarly, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is another mental disorder that is occasioned by constant violent events in the life of an officer. Members of the police service are likely to come across such incidents during the course of their practice. For instance, constant exposure bloodshed, deaths and inhuman treatment of some members of a community are likely to trigger PTSD in police officers. Symptoms of PTSD may encompass flashbacks, hallucinations and severe nervousness as well as irrepressible imaginations about the occurrence. Many police officers who experience traumatic occurrences such as bloodshed often have difficulty coping after such incidents, but they do not have PTSD. However, over time and with good self-care, such officers usually recover. But in the event that the symptoms degenerate into worse episodes running for many months or even years, to an extent that they impede the normal functioning of the brain, the agents in question may develop PTSD (French, & Parkinson, 2008). As such, providing the officers with appropriate care immediately they show symptoms of TBI and or PTSD can be an important to control of the symptoms and the subsequent improvement of the normal functioning of the brain. A police agent may develop PTSD after an episode of TBI or after experiencing a violent incident happen to a third party or after being subjected to long periods of distress that he or she could not withstand (Miller, 2006). Unlike TBI which is caused by physical shock to the head and brain during police training or in actual law enforcement processes, PTSD is caused by two primary factors: first, the public perceptions about a violent mission in which police officers had a hand, especially since the media criticism of police actions became commonplace in the 21st century. The negative perceptions the public have on the police can be one