A shot of cortisone may help avert PTSD

An injection of cortisone, a steroid hormone, can prevent post-traumatic stress disorder in 60 percent of those who experience trauma, Israeli researchers say. Joseph Zohar of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center, in collaboration with Hagit Cohen from Ben-Gurion University, said when a person suffers trauma, the body naturally increases its secretion of cortisone. Taking this natural phenomenon into account, the researchers set out to discover what a single extra dose of cortisone could do, when administered as much as 6 hours after test subjects experienced a traumatizing event. The researchers initiated a double-blind study in an emergency room, in which trauma victims entering the hospital were randomly assigned to receive a placebo or the cortisone treatment. Follow-up exams took place two weeks, one month and three months later. The study, published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, found patients who had received a shot of cortisone were more than 60 percent less likely than others to develop PTSD. This approach may circumvent the harm caused by dosing traumatized patients with other pharmaceuticals. In the emergency room, traumatized patients are often given medications such as Valium or Xanax, intended to calm them down. However, Zohar said these pills interfere with the recovery process, hindering the secretion of cortisone. "Looking at the long-term effect, people who received these medications had a greater chance of developing PTSD than those who did not," Zohar added.