Professional Chronic Stress – Clinical, Physiological and Biological Evaluation

Abstract

Introduction: Since stress is an element increasingly present in our professional lives, there is now a greater interest in understanding the role of stress and the response to stress in human brain aging. Materials and methods: The case of 38 years old woman is reported, who works in the financial field (bank) and has a declarative high level of professional stress. Clinical, functional, and biological evaluations of chronic stress were made, to identify and subjectively evaluate stressors, as well as for objective quantification of their impact on the body and evaluation of the effect of specialized interventions aiming to improve the quality of personal life and increase professional efficiency. Discussion and Conclusions: Subjective evaluation questionnaires as well as objective measurements of biological and physiological parameters can be considered useful tools for evaluating chronic stress, especially when used together. Early identification of occupational stressors, clinical and biological knowledge of stress as well as the development of preventive and personalized measures, may define a future approach in the context of preventing stress-induced pathologies, like depression and anxiety, but also neurocognitive disorders (from mild cognitive impairment to early Alzheimer’s disease).