The Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder Versus Unipolar Depression
Bipolar disorder is a serious mental disorder, but unfortunately our collective knowledge of this mental illness is not extensive. Unlike depression, where patients are strictly sullen and deeply blue, the bipolar patient experiences that same depression only flanked by extreme highs—a hyperactivity and increase in serotonin. It is this inconsistency in mood—a clinical mood swinging, that makes bipolar disorder so difficult to diagnose. Difficulty, as will be discussed in the paper, comes from patients inability to recognize these highs as potentially troublesome, and instead opt to focus only on the depressed moods that follow. Conventional thought, after all, is not to worry or see a doctor should one suddenly have increased energy and enthusiasm. The result is a overwhelming understanding of other illnesses, but significantly less of bipolar, especially of these highs, or hypomanic episodes patients feel. This paper will first discuss bipolar disorder, its symptoms and prognosis. The errors in diagnosing bipolar disorder and how this leads to confusion surrounding treatments will also be discussed. An investigation in to the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder will reveal a strong inconsistency in treatment stemming from lack of conclusive knowledge about the disorder. While many doctors suggest antidepressant use, while others will utilize lithium, and mood stabilizers, and in fact this range of treatments is in fact responsible for the lack of holistic understanding of the disorder as a chemo-physiological disease, but also as a separate entity from traditional, or what is often referred to as unipolar depression.
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from some type of mental disorder. Mental illnesses can turn a person’s world upside down. These medical conditions can disrupt every aspect of a person and their family’s lives. Mental disorders do not discriminate; age, sex, or color does not matter when it comes to mental illness. Many people live with different types of mental health problems. These problems can be anxieties, drug or alcohol addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and personality and mood disorders. People can suffer from
The event of bipolar disorder has been a mystery since the 16th century. Records have shown that this problem can appear in almost anyone. It is clear that in our social world many people live with bipolar disorder. Regardless of the number of people suffering from the disease, we are still waiting for an explanation regarding the causes and cure. One fact of which we are aware, is that bipolar disorder severely undermines its’ victims ability to obtain and maintain social and occupational success