{"id":183870,"date":"2017-06-15T18:38:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T18:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/many-rape-victims-experience-paralysis-during-assault\/"},"modified":"2017-06-15T18:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T18:38:00","slug":"many-rape-victims-experience-paralysis-during-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/many-rape-victims-experience-paralysis-during-assault\/","title":{"rendered":"Many rape victims experience &#8216;paralysis&#8217; during assault"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span id=\"article-text\"><br \/>\n<span id=\"midArticle_start\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_0\" \/><span class=\"article-prime\"><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocatio\/spann\">(Reuters Health) &#8211; Many sexual assault victims experience an involuntary inability to move during rape, and those who do are more likely to later develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, Swedish researchers say.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/span><span id=\"midArticle_1\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>In a large sample of women treated at a rape clinic in Stockholm, about 70 percent reported an inability to move or resist during the assault.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_2\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>\u201cVictims tend to blame themselves for not resisting, so the fact that 7 out of 10 have paralysis is useful to know,\u201d said lead study author Dr. Anna Moller of Stockholm South General Hospital and the Karolinska Institute. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_3\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>In animals, this reaction, known as tonic immobility is an evolutionary defensive response to a predatory attack, Moller\u2019s team writes in the journal Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_4\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Past studies indicate that humans can similarly feel paralyzed when under attack or in other life-threatening circumstances, experiencing temporary, involuntary immobility that may also involve a dissociated, catatonic-like mental state.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_5\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>\u201cIn court situations, a lot of focus is given to whether the victim consented to the intercourse or not,\u201d Moller told Reuters Health by email. \u201cThis paralysis and passiveness should not be considered consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_6\" \/><\/p>\n<p>                <span class=\"article-divide first-article-divide\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Moller and colleagues surveyed 298 women who visited the Emergency Clinic for Raped Women in Stockholm within one month of a sexual assault. The clinic offers free services and sees about 600 patients per year. The researchers interviewed participants using a questionnaire called the Tonic Immobility Scale, which asks about feeling frozen or paralyzed, the inability to move although not restrained, the inability to call out or shout, numbness, feeling cold and feeling detached from one\u2019s self. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_7\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>After six months, the research team also assessed 189 of those women for PTSD and depression.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_8\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>They found that 70 percent of women reported significant tonic immobility and 48 percent reported extreme tonic immobility during their assaults. Having had this experience more than doubled the likelihood of PTSD at the six-month follow up and raised the likelihood of severe depression by nearly four-fold.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_9\" \/><\/p>\n<p>                <span class=\"article-divide second-article-divide\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Of the 189 women who completed the six-month assessment, more than half of those who experienced tonic immobility during their assault had developed PTSD, compared to 28 percent who didn&#8217;t. Similarly, 34 percent of those who experienced tonic immobility were severely depressed, compared to 14 percent of those who didn&#8217;t. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_10\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>The research team also found that women with a history of sexual assault &#8211; in childhood or adulthood &#8211; were twice as likely as others to have experienced tonic immobility during the recent rape. Women whose rape was part of a \u201cmore severe assault,\u201d involving physical violence or multiple attackers, for example, were also twice as likely to have experienced tonic immobility during the attack.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_11\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>One limitation of the study is that the emergency clinic only saw female patients at the time of the interviews. Moller\u2019s team would also like to include larger, more diverse samples in several geographic locations to better understand tonic immobility generally, she said.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_12\" \/><\/p>\n<p>                <span class=\"article-divide third-article-divide\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Future studies should also include levels of victim resistance, said Jennifer Wong of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research. <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_13\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>\u201cA victim may have felt frozen, detached or numb during some of the assault but may have initially verbally or physically resisted her attacker,\u201d Wong said.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_14\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Tonic immobility research could provide major implications for court cases and the psycho-education of rape victims, Moller said.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_15\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t blame rape victims for not resisting,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a normal biological reaction when exposed to an extreme threat.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_16\" \/><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>SOURCE: bit.ly\/2rIM4zI<\/a> Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, online June 7, 2017.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"midArticle_17\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters Health) &#8211; Many sexual assault victims experience an involuntary inability to move during rape, and those who do are more likely to later develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, Swedish researchers say. In a large sample of women treated at a rape clinic in Stockholm, about 70 percent reported an inability to move <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/many-rape-victims-experience-paralysis-during-assault\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}