What is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)?
GAD (Generalise Anxiety Disorder) is a disorder causing an individual to experience constant worrisome and unreasonable thoughts and stresses over routine daily activities for several months. People with GAD always anticipate the worst. The disorder is often accompanied by physical symptoms such as fatigue, trembling, muscle tension, headache and nausea.
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How does GAD look like?
How Common is GAD?
There Are Effective Treatment Options for GAD
Cipralex Has Proved Efficacy in the Treatment of GAD
How does GAD look like?
People with GAD experience ongoing, exaggerated tension that interferes with daily functioning. Individuals with GAD worry constantly, even when there is no apparent reason for doing so. The focus of these excessive concerns may be health, family, work, or money. In addition, those with GAD are unable to relax, are easily tired and irritable, have difficulty concentrating, and may experience insomnia, muscle tension, trembling, fatigue, and headaches. Although people with GAD usually do not seek to avoid specific objects or situations, they are highly likely to have additional mental health difficulties, such as depression, substance abuse, or another anxiety disorder.
How Common is GAD?
Two large epidemiological surveys conducted in the United States, the ECA (Epidemiological Catchment Area) and the NCS (National Comorbidity Survey), estimate a lifetime prevalence of GAD about 5% to 6% (ref.1, ref.2, ref.3) and in a community sample, the 1-year prevalence rate will be approximately 3% (ref.4). In an anxiety disorder clinic about one quarter of the individuals have GAD as a presenting or co-morbid diagnosis. GAD develops twice as often in women compared with men. Several clinical features appear to distinguish women from man with GAD. Dysthymia may be more likely to develop in women with GAD. The presence of co-morbid diagnosis is associated with a worsened prognosis and reduced remission rate compared with compared with those with GAD alone. Genetic factors, rather than environmental factors, seem to be particularly important in determining the liability for developing GAD in women (ref.3).
There Are Effective Treatment Options for GAD
GAD is usually treated with medications. Benzodiazepines have an immediate effect, but because of the risk of tolerance development and dependence the benzodiazepines can only be used for short periods of time. Today the modern antidepressants, the SSRIs, are preferred.
Cipralex Has Proved Efficacy in the Treatment of GAD
The results of a recent double blind, placebo-controlled comparative study of Cipralex (Lexapro) and paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat) as an active reference have clearly demonstrated that Cipralex is superior to paroxetine in the treatment of GAD. The proportion of patients in remission after 12 weeks was significantly greater in the Cipralex groups (5, 10, and 20 mg), and Cipralex was numerically superior to paroxetine at all times with 10mg attaining a significant difference to paroxetine. The clinical documentation for Cipralex is based on 7 studies enrolling more than 1,600 patients. We consider Cipralex to be the best drug for the treatment of GAD.
References:
1. Kessler RC, McGonagle KA, Zhao S et al. Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III psychiatric disorders in the United States: results from the National Comorbidity Survey. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1994; 51: 8-19.
2. Regier DA, Narrow WE, Rae DS. The epidemiology of anxiety disorders: the Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) experience: J Psychiatr Res 1990; 2: 3-14.
3. Pigott TA. Gender differences in the epidemiology and treatment of anxiety disorders. J Clin Psychiatry 1999; 60 (suppl 18): 4-15.
4. DSM-IV-TR Electronic , American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc, Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association.