Whenever Jessica enters the airplane, she experiences palpitations, choking, nausea and discomfort despite having travelled multiple times by air. Jessica may be experiencing the disorder called:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Panic Disorder
Option (1) Schizophrenia — Incorrect. Schizophrenia is a group of psychotic disorders with disturbed thought processes, strange perceptions such as hallucinations and delusions, and unusual emotional states. Jessica shows bodily signs of intense anxiety, not a loss of touch with reality.
Option (2) Post-traumatic Stress Disorder — Incorrect. PTSD follows a traumatic event such as a disaster, a bomb blast or a serious accident, and shows recurrent dreams, flashbacks, impaired concentration and emotional numbing. Jessica has travelled by air many times and no trauma is mentioned.
Option (3) Panic Disorder — Correct. Panic disorder consists of recurrent anxiety attacks of intense terror. A panic attack is an abrupt surge of anxiety that peaks when thoughts of a particular stimulus are present, and its clinical features include palpitations, choking, nausea, chest pain or discomfort, the very symptoms Jessica has each time she enters an aeroplane.
Option (4) Dementia — Incorrect. Dementia is a gradual decline in memory, thinking and judgement, serious enough to disturb daily life, seen mostly in old age (for example, in Alzheimer’s disease). It has nothing to do with sudden attacks of fear.
Note: The disorder in Option (4), ‘dementia’, is not in the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023, nor in the NCERT book (2025-26); explained here for the benefit of the students.
NCERT (2025-26): “Anxiety Disorders … Another type of anxiety disorder is panic disorder, which consists of recurrent anxiety attacks in which the person experiences intense terror. A panic attack denotes an abrupt surge of intense anxiety rising to a peak when thoughts of a particular stimuli are present. Such thoughts occur in an unpredictable manner. The clinical features include shortness of breath, dizziness, trembling, palpitations, choking, nausea, chest pain or discomfort, fear of going crazy, losing control or dying.…” “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders … Very often people who have been caught in a natural disaster (such as tsunami) or have been victims of bomb blasts by terrorists, or been in a serious accident or in a war-related situation, experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD symptoms vary widely but may include recurrent dreams, flashbacks, impaired concentration, and emotional numbing.…” |