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Outline of bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder with cyclical periods of depression and periods of elevated mood. The elevated mood is significant and is known as mania, a severe elevation that can be accompanied by psychosis in some cases, or hypomania, a milder form of mania. During mania, an individual behaves or feels abnormally energetic, elated, or irritable. Individuals often make poorly thought out decisions with little regard to the consequences. The need for sleep is usually reduced during manic phases.

During periods of depression, there may be crying, a negative outlook on life, and poor eye contact with others. The risk of suicide among those with the illness is high at greater than 6 percent over 20 years, while self-harm occurs in 30–40 percent. Other mental health issues such as anxiety disorders and substance use disorder are commonly associated. Also known as manic depression. People with bipolar disorder experience the whole spectrum of emotional feelings from unimaginable grief to full blown euphoria whereas normal people experience only a section of the spectrum of emotional feelings somewhere between extreme grief and extreme happiness.

What categories does bipolar disorder fall under?

Bipolar disorder can be described as all of the following:

  • Disorder –
  • Mental disorder – functional abnormality or disturbance characterized by a behavioral or mental pattern that may cause suffering or a poor ability to function in life. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode.
  • More specifically, bipolar disorder can be characterized by extreme mood swings, ranging from extreme peaks or "highs" of happiness, otherwise known as hypomania, to heightened lows of sadness and depression.

Bipolar spectrum

Bipolar spectrum –

  • Bipolar I bipolar disorder with at least one manic episode (with or without psychotic features), possibly with hypomanic and/or depressive episodes as well
  • Psychotic features psychosis experienced in some cases of Bipolar I disorder, typically during mania or a severe depressive episode
  • Bipolar II bipolar disorder categorized by depressive episodes and at least one hypomanic episode, no manic episode experienced
  • Bipolar disorder not otherwise specified bipolar disorder when it does not fall within the other established sub-types
  • Cyclothymia a milder form of bipolar disorder with predominantly depressive symptoms and some symptoms of hypomania, does not meet diagnostic severity of bipolar I or II
  • Dysthymia akin to depression, with chronic symptoms
  • Major depressive disorder a mood disorder involving low mood, low energy, poor self-esteem, lack of interest in enjoyable activities, and/or aches and pains
  • Schizoaffective disorder cyclical mood episodes combined with psychosis; has subtypes: bipolar type and depressive type
  • Mania a state of hyperactivity, heightened mood (euphoric or irritable), low sleep, pressured speech, grandiosity, and/or racing thoughts; may include psychotic features like delusions or hallucinations
  • Unipolar mania a state that occurs in bipolar disorder where individuals only experience manic episodes without depression
  • Mixed affective state a state with traits of both mania and depression (e.g. irritability, low mood, suicidality, and racing thoughts at the same time)
  • Hypomania an episode of elevated mood, similar to mania with milder symptomatic severity
  • Major depressive episode a mood episode with major depressive symptoms

Symptoms of bipolar disorder

Signs typical of mania

  • Delusion fixed belief that cannot be changed despite reason or evidence, not explained by common cultural beliefs
  • Hallucination perceiving something that is not actually present
  • Insomnia difficulty falling and/or staying asleep
  • Pressured speech rapid, erratic, and/or frenzied speech that can be difficult for others to understand and interrupt
  • Psychosis inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy
  • Racing thoughts rapid thinking, sometimes experienced as distracting or distressing

Signs typical of depression

Treatment of bipolar disorder

Non-pharmaceutical treatment of bipolar disorder

History of bipolar disorder

  • Emil Kraepelin – introduced the dichotomy between 'manic-depressive insanity' and 'dementia praecox', what we later know as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
  • Karl Leonhard – introduced the terms 'bipolar' and 'unipolar'.
  • John Cade – discovered lithium as a medicine in Australia in 1949.
  • Mogens Schou – completed first controlled study on use of lithium in bipolar disorder treatment.
  • Frederick K. Goodwin – was the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
  • Kay Redfield Jamison – wrote the main textbook on bipolar disorder together with Frederick Goodwin, Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression.

Organisations

See also

References

External links