Diagnosing And Treating Bipolar Children
It’s only been in recent years that the psychiatric profession has even recognized that there could be bipolar children. The accepted wisdom was always that bipolar disorder, or manic depression, only developed in adults. This was despite evidence from early researchers that some adult symptoms had in fact emerged before they were ten years old. But the result of this assumption was that manic depression treatment methods were always geared explicitly toward adults. It wasn’t easy to find any sort of bipolar information about either symptoms or treatment for manic depression in children.
Things have gotten better to some degree; certainly the current treatments have greatly improved the situation. But another reason why it’s hard to treat bipolar disorder is that the symptoms tend to overlap with those of other disorders. For example, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may resemble bipolar disorder in its manic phase. Bipolar children with those symptoms are often diagnosed only because they are more aggressive, with more behavioral problems, than if they only had ADHD. With such overlapping of symptoms, what this means is that diagnosing the problem and finding the right medical treatments is very difficult.
Anxiety disorders can also be an indicator that doctors should watch for manic depression as well, since children with these disorders are more likely also to develop bipolar disorder. Children with bipolar disorder may often have had treatment already for full-blown depressive episodes, which served as precursors for the later illness. Even irritability and hypersensitivity might be warning signs, if they last for days at a time.
Diagnosis is controversial, though, because children with bipolar disorder are much more likely to be diagnosed in the United States than in other parts of the world. Interpretations vary on whether this is because there is simply over diagnosis in the U.S., or whether US doctors are simply recognizing a problem that really exists. Bipolar info and interpretation of symptoms varies considerably from country to country.
This means that treatment for manic depression will also vary between countries. Yet if this disorder is genuine, it appears to be more intense in bipolar children than in adults, so it’s important to find the right therapies. Some of the antipsychotic drugs usually prescribed for this disorder can damage the liver and increase the risk of heart problems or diabetes. Yet without the medications, children are at risk of psychosis, cognitive impairment or even suicide. Correct diagnosis is crucial, so that the best treatments can be devised, and the risk to the children minimized as much as possible.
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Tagged with: Adhd • Anxiety Disorders • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Adhd • Bipolar • Bipolar Children • Bipolar Disorder • Bipolar Symptoms • Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder • Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Adhd • Depression In Children • Depressive Episodes • Hyperactivity • Irritability • Manic Depression Treatment • Manic Phase • Medical Treatments • Psychiatric Profession • Warning Signs • What This Means
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