Acrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear or altitude phobia, especially when a person is not very tall. It belongs to a specific category of phobias, called space and movement discomfort, which share the same causes and options for treatment.
Most people experience a natural level of fear when exposed to heights, known as fear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have heads for heights. A head for altitude is advantageous for those who climb or climb in mountain areas and also in certain occupations such as steeplejacks or wind turbine mechanics.
People with acrophobia may experience panic attacks in high places and become too restless to keep themselves safe. About 2-5% of the general population has acrophobia, with twice as many women affected as men. The term is derived from Greek: ????? , ÃÆ'¡kron , meaning "peak, top, edge" and ????? , phÃÆ'³bos , "fear".
Video Acrophobia
Cause
Traditionally, acrophobia has been linked, like other phobias, to conditioned or traumatic experiences. Recent research has cast doubt on this explanation; the fear of falling, along with the fear of loud noise, is one of the most commonly suggested or "non-associative" fears. The newer non-associative theory is that the fear of heights is an adaptation that evolves into a world where fall poses a significant danger. The level of fear varies and the term phobia is reserved for those who are on the extreme end of the spectrum. The researchers argue that the fear of heights is an instinct found in many mammals, including domestic animals and humans. Experiments using visual cliffs have shown human and toddler infants, as well as other animals of various ages, to reluctantly stretch to the glass floor with views a few meters from the clear falling chamber underneath. While congenital alertness around the altitude is helpful for survival, extreme fear can interfere with daily life activities, such as standing on stairs or chairs, or even climbing stairs.
Possible causative factor is dysfunction in maintaining balance. In this case, anxiety is both established and secondary. The human balance system integrates proprioceptive, vestibular and nearest visual cues to take account of position and movement. As the altitude rises, visual cues recede and balance becomes worse even in normal people. However, most people respond by switching to more dependence on the proprioceptive and vestibular branches of the balance system.
An acrophobic, however, continues to be overly dependent on visual signals whether due to inadequate vestibular function or incorrect strategies. Locomotion at high altitudes requires more than normal visual processing. The visual cortex becomes overloaded causing confusion. Some advocates of the alternative view of acrophobia warn that it may be mistakenly suggested to encourage acrophobics to expose themselves to the heights without first solving vestibular problems. Research is underway at several clinics.
Maps Acrophobia
Diagnosis
Confusion with vertigo
"Vertigo" is often used (wrongly) to describe the fear of heights, but more accurate the whirling sensation that occurs when a person does not actually spin. This can be triggered by looking down from a high place, looking directly at high ground or high objects, or even seeing something (ie cars or birds) passing at high speed, but this alone does not represent vertigo.. Actual vertigo can be triggered by almost any kind of movement (eg standing, sitting, walking) or changing the visual perspective (eg squatting, walking up or down stairs, looking out the window of a car or moving train). Vertigo is called high vertigo when the sensation of vertigo is triggered by the height.
Treatment
There are a number of studies in using virtual reality therapy for acrophobia.
Many different types of drugs are used in the treatment of phobias such as fear of heights, including traditional anti-anxiety medications such as benzodiazepines, and newer options such as antidepressants and beta-blockers.
Prognosis
Some desensitization treatments produce short-term improvements in symptoms. The success of long-term treatment has been difficult to understand.
Epidemiology
True acrophobia is rare.
The associated form, lighter than visually triggered fear or anxiety is called high visual intolerance . Up to one-third of people may have a certain level of visual altitude intolerance.
Society and culture
In the movie Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo , John "Scottie" Ferguson, played by James Stewart, had to resign from the police after the incident that caused him to develop both acrophobia and vertigo. The word "vertigo" is mentioned only once, while "acrophobia" is mentioned several times. At the beginning of the film, Ferguson collapsed while climbing the stairs. There are many references throughout the film for fear of heights and fall.
See also
- Fear of falling
- Acclimatization
- Go to height
- List of phobias
References
External links
- "The scariest path in the world?", live test, video recording at El Camino del Rey, approaching Makinodromo
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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