Anxiety can defined as a disorder where the physiological state of a human is characterized by somatic, cognitive, behavioral and emotional components. All these components come together and trigger feelings that are recognized as worry, fear, or apprehension. Anxiety has several symptoms and these are characterized heart palpitations, breath shortness, nausea, stomach ache, chest pain, or headache. The rate at which anxiety is occurred is different in different persons and this anxiety measurement can be performed with an anxiety scale. Anxiety scale is of different types.
Somatically, the human body prepares itself to deal with any kind of threat and as a result of this heart rate increases, there is an increase in blood pressure and one perspires excessively. In many cases paling of the skin, pupillary dilation, sweating and trembling can be noticed. Emotionally, anxiety can trigger a sense of panic and physically it may lead to chills, nausea and diarrhea. Both voluntary and involuntary behavioral patterns can be observed if the victim tries to avoid or escape from the anxiety source.
But one important point to remember is that that anxiety may not always be maladaptive or pathological and can faced as a common emotion during anger, fear, happiness and sadness.
The anxiety scale helps in the determination of the extent of anxiety in a person. Hippocampus and neural circuitry which involves amygdala is believed to underlie this disorder called anxiety. When the patient confronts something unpleasant or potentially harmful stimuli like foul tastes or odors can be felt. PET-scans can reveal an increased percentage of bloodflow in the amygdale. This is rated normal anxiety. All these leave one conclusion and that is anxiety could be a protective mechanism which prevents the organism from engaging in harmful actions.
The Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) is a scale of anxiety measurement and is developed to check the severity of anxiety. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale finds good used in the psychotropic drug evaluation. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale comprises 14 items, and each can be defined with its own set of symptoms. Each item gets a rating based on the 5-point scale and this ranges from 0 (which means anxiety is not present) to 4 (which indicates anxiety is there in severe form). There is another type of anxiety scale which is known as the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) which is required for anxiety in major dimensions in the youth within the age limits 8-19.
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