Panic Disorder

Panic disorder (PD), though commonly believed to be a recent psychiatric phenomenon, is present in literature dating back to the 18th century with Émile Littré and Charles Robin (1850) describing panic symptoms as a “definition of distress” and Sigmund Freud (1894) noting panic symptoms as a discrimination between anxiety neurosis and neurasthenia. Officially recognized as a psychiatric condition in 1980 in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), PD has since maintained stable 12-month prevalence rates of 2.7% and lifetime prevalence rates of 4.7% in the United States.

The typical age range of diagnosis falls between ages 30 and 59 years, with symptom onset typically occurring between ages 20 and 24, although some individuals report symptoms emerging as early as childhood or ...