Clinical: The basics - Anxiety.(Disease/Disorder overview)

Dr Raj Thakkar explains how anxiety can manifest itself and present in different forms.

Anxiety is, for most people, a normal response to a stressful situation Patients experience cognitive features including fear, impending doom and the feeling of loss of control.

In addition, they experience somatic features related to sympathetic nervous system activity, namely sweating, tremor and tachycardia.

It is when this anxiety affects functioning, occurs in the absence of a stressor or is related to a significant psychiatric or medical condition that we as GPs need to intervene.

The condition is commonplace in general practice and the key to its successful management is recognising when the patient requires medical help, understanding the type of anxiety the patient is experiencing and whether there are any underlying conditions.

There are many forms of anxiety …