CASE STUDIES

MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT
Thomas was a 31 year old full time IT manager working in a university department. He was riding his motorbike when a car pulled out in front of him. He hit the car and was thrown off his bike and slid down the road. He suffered soft tissue injuries which resolved quite quickly. He developed severe travel anxiety. He became too anxious to ride his motorbike which he sold. He bought a car but was too fearful to drive it. To solve his transport problems to and from work he moved house to be near an underground railway station. He was assessed by a Moving Minds specialist 31 months after the accident. She confirmed his persisting travel related phobic anxiety and recommended up to ten sessions of psychological treatment. His condition resolved after three sessions and he was able to drive again and had bought a new motorbike.

ACCIDENT IN A TAXI
Joan is a 63 year old great grandmother from Glasgow. She was paying the fare of her taxi when it was struck by another car. She was not physically injured but thought that she might have been killed by the other car. Her psychological health was impaired as a result of the accident and she developed PTSD with Travel Anxiety, which was confirmed by a MM specialist 24 months after the accident. He validated this using a number of established measures including the Impact of Event Scale (IES). This was very abnormal when first seen. She had eleven sessions of EMDR and CBT, the first four taking place at Joan's home. By the end of the eleventh session all her symptoms had resolved and her psychological health was restored to normal. This is graphically illustrated in her normal IES scores. [ see graph ]

CYCLE ACCIDENT
Gerhard is a 51 year old sheet metal worker. He was hit by a van while cycling to work. He thought that he was going to die. He sustained relatively minor physical injuries which resolved. Psychologically he was badly affected by the accident and felt unable to start cycling again and some symptoms of PTSD. These symptoms were all present when he was seen by a Moving Minds Specialist 14 months after the accident. Over the next few months he had eight sessions of EMDR. His troublesome symptoms disappeared and he bought himself a motor scooter to travel to work

DRIVER ACCIDENT
Mary is a 27 year old woman who was driving her husband to work. A car from a side road drove into the side of her car injuring her husband and damaging the passenger side of the car, which was a write-off. She had no significant physical injuries but developed situational anxiety. She avoids driving now whenever possible, and experiences unpleasant feelings of anxiety when she is a car passenger She was seen by a Moving Minds Specialist 15 months after the accident. She responded very well to five sessions of EMDR at the end of which she lost her driving and passenger anxiety. Objective psychological measurements confirmed these subjective findings.