Table 1 Practical interventions that may mitigate the effects of acute traumatic events prior to developing PTSD
Strategy | Intervention | Possible outcome? |
|---|---|---|
Increasing resilience | Increase fitness | Reduced relative work intensity for individuals |
Managing fatigue—appropriate work/rest cycles | Reduced fatigue and risk of overtraining | |
Psychological screening | At risk, individuals may be removed prior to exposure or proactive, targeted interventions are put in place | |
Injury management/rehabilitation | Proper injury management, particularly in the form of early intervention will reduce the duration of injury and possibly related immune changes | |
Working in the heat/smoke | Appropriate PPC selection for the task | Reduced thermal strain of workers |
Pre-cooling of workers | Reduced thermal strain during work events possibly due to lower peak T c | |
Post-incident cooling | Reduce inflammation to resting state as soon as possible following work. Reduce T c rapidly to baseline levels | |
Appropriate work/rest cycles | Minimising T c rise and subsequent inflammatory activity | |
Sleep deprivation | Cognitive behaviour therapy | Individuals demonstrating sleeping disorders may improve the quality and duration of sleep |
Sleep hygiene | Individuals will have better strategies for managing sleep in the field and during deployments | |
Screening for sleep disorders | Individuals can be targeted for interventions | |
Rostering for rest periods | Reduced fatigue of possibly at-risk individuals |