It is generally treated with psychotherapy or antianxiety medications. Epilepsy can also present as disassociative disorder and should be considered in the differential diagnosis. There are anxiety episodes which are secondary to psychiatric illness. The most important condition is psychosis, namely schizophrenia - where one experiences hallucinations and delusions. Antipsychotic medications, at times along with anti-anxiety medications, is successful in alleviating some of these symptoms.
Antidepressants helps alleviate some of their symptoms.
Anxiety can also be precipitated due to medical conditions, namely thyroid dysfunction, hypoglycemia, cardiac ar-rhythmias, and mitral valve prolapse, which has been frequently associated with panic disorder. Lack of oxygen to the brain also makes people nervous and agitated which is also known as anxiety secondary to hypoxia. There are many medications that can cause anxiety, namely nicotine, amphetamines, cocaine, coffee, sedative hypnotics, alcohol, etc. The key to successful therapeutic outcome is to diagnose the symptoms and to classify these symptoms into specific anxiety disorder. Deepak Raheja, M.D., is a Neurologist who had his training from New York Medical College in Neurology and Neurophysiology and is the Director of Neurology, Neurodiagnostics and The Cleveland Headache Clinic.