Bipolar Disorder

Are you familiar with Google Ngrams? If not, you may find the graphs it produces to be a very visual and interesting way to look back at terms used in psychiatry.

I would like to start off this blog with two stories that happened many years ago.

In my previous blog, The Missing Person in the DSM, I questioned whether the DSM diagnostic manual classifies psychiatric disorders or the individuals suffering from diagnostic disorders-Ms Smith’s bipolar disorder, or Ms Smith, a person with bipolar disorder.

The recent mass murders in Arizona are the latest in our country's epidemic of horrible, hate inspired crimes. The 24/7 media punditry and political spinning has been disappointingly off point in a way suggesting that once again we will learn nothing from our mistakes and that such tragedies will continue to recur with distressing frequency.

Recently, NARSAD presented its achievement awards for 2010-awards given to physicians and scientists doing cutting-edge work to better understand the mechanisms and causes of mental illness.

Sometimes, when I recommend an antidepressant, patients will ask if it will make them happy. No, I usually eventually answer. I try to gently and empathically point out that what we have are called antidepressants. They are not called happy pills for a good reason.

Critics have noted that meta-analysis, when misused, resembles statistical alchemy, taking the dross of individually negative studies to produce the gold of a positive pooled result.

Here’s a question. As you sit across from your patient, what or whom are you treating: Ms Smith’s bipolar illness, or Ms Smith, a person with bipolar illness? The DSM leans toward the first choice.

Do patients with the personality trait alexithymia have trouble understanding the written language? What percentage of patients with dementia have at least one psychiatric comorbidity? These and more in this quiz.

The doctor’s role is to go beyond the obvious and to detect subtle determinants. Good diagnosticians have been trained to look beneath the loud symptom and consider underlying factors.

These issues-among others-raise this question: Is the addition of a new diagnosis such as TDD to DSM-5 the best way to manage the issue of classification of youths with chronic, severe irritability and potential misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder?

As I was driving to work on February 10, 2010, I listened to the National Public Radio host Melissa Block talking about how children labeled “bipolar” may get a new diagnosis. I was shocked that the chair of one of the DSM5 work groups, David Shaffer, MD, would discuss a controversial diagnostic topic with the media.

The ideal field test would study how the diagnostic manual will eventually perform under conditions most closely approximating its future everyday use. The goal is to avoid unpleasant surprises in translation from what has been written on paper to what is practiced in real life. No field test can ever approach the ideal.

A meta-analysis sheds new light on the safety and efficacy of antidepressants in the acute treatment of bipolar disorder.

The DSM does and must involve both science and pragmatism. It must use the science that is available, but it must also make countless judgment calls that are not grounded in solid empirical evidence-and surely it makes sense to consider practical consequences in doing the latter.

Every year, more than 1 million children are exposed to sexual or physical abuse or neglect in the US. The research summarized here clearly demonstrates that exposure to stress before adulthood can result in persistent effects on both mental and physical health.

There are feasible and replicable ways for caring adults to help heal themselves as well as the next generation through mass application of reflection and altruistic caring for the remaining offspring, whether in Sichuan, Gaza, New Orleans, or Haiti.

There is evidence that the combination of medication and psychotherapy improves outcomes for many psychiatric illnesses. Among the several forms of psychotherapy that might be considered, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most extensively studied.

Which medications have typically been used as first-line treatment for acute mania? Is comorbidity the rule or the exception in patients with bipolar disorder? These questions and more in this week's quiz.

This is both an exciting and challenging time to be a child and adolescent psychiatrist. New findings are changing our knowledge of childhood psychopathology. This Special Report discusses current developments in diagnosis, treatments, and problems for children and adolescents.

Designers of descriptive diagnostic criteria for mental disorders face some of the same problems as fishermen. Fishermen, like nosologists, want to capture not just any fish but a particular kind. Fishermen deal with this problem in various ways.

Of the more than 250 million prescriptions written for psychiatric drugs in 2009 in this country, Xanax is the by far most popular. Nearly 50 million prescriptions were written for this benzodiazepine or its generic form last year.

What's the rate of bipolar spectrum disorder in children who have one parent with bipolar disorder? What methods are used to test for cognitive deficits in patients with bipolar disorder? These and more in this week's quiz.

Is combination therapy with lithium and valproate more effective in preventing relapses in patients with bipolar I disorder than monotherapy with either drug alone?

Are psychiatrists agents of the police or doctors who care for the sick? Thomas Szasz raised this question 50 years ago in his iconic “The Myth of Mental Illness.” Psychiatry has changed in the ensuing decades, but Szasz’ question is still relevant. Why?

In the debates around DSM-5, a central figure has been Allen Frances, whose views seem to elicit sympathy from many unhappy with the DSM system (the 4th edition of which Dr. Frances led).

According to the 2009 Roundtable on Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents, a diagnosis of pediatric bipolar I disorder should be considered dependent on what factors? This and more in this week's quiz.

A small percentage of educators use their position of power to sexually exploit their students. While it is assumed that men are often responsible for this type of behavior, in recent years, a number of high-profile cases of female educator sexual misconduct have been covered by the media.