Bipolar Disorder: A Look Into Manic Depression

The psychiatric disorder known as bipolar disorder is probably one of the most misunderstood conditions because of the many symptoms that represent it. Basically, the condition is defined as a significant disturbance of moods that happen in a recurrent manner. This is the reason why it is hard to study a person who has the condition without thinking that he or she is just suffering from manic depression.

What It Is

Bipolar disorder was once known as bipolar affective disorder and the term is now used in place of manic-depressive illness. It is only now referred to as the new term to get rid of any stigma that might be created by using the words “manic” and “depression”. Basically, this condition affects people at an early time of life and a lot of the sufferers are young adults. Studies have shown that it happens for a number of reasons that include genetics, environmental, psychological, and even social factors.

Symptoms

The illness itself is cyclical. People who suffer from manic depression display many elevated and depressive episodes almost simultaneously or erratically at the least. People who suffer from these rapid changes will, on average, experience them for about 3 to 6 months for each of the episodes. Most people who suffer from the bipolar disorder are in their late adolescence and early adulthood years and these are critical years because of the many adjustments that they have to make in their social lives.

Phases of Bipolar Disorder

Some of the phases that people with bipolar disorder will go through are the depressive phases, mania, hypomania, and mixed state. In the depressive phase, one will exhibit persistent feelings of sadness, guilt, anger and isolation. That then may be placed with mania, when the same person then starts to feel elevated and even irritable. That can then be replaced yet again with a state that is less severe than mania called hypomania. A mixed state is basically a condition wherein mania and clinical depression happen at the same time and this can be very dangerous for the person who suffers it. These states do not happen in any particular order. Other states include rapid cycling, wherein a person can have three or four different episodes in the span of one year; and cognition, wherein a patient will suffer from different cognitive impairments.

How Is This Disorder Treated?

Bipolar disorder or manic depression is, at the moment, being treated using different medications and therapies. The therapies include regular counseling between a doctor and patient. Most of the medications that are prescribed to patients are referred to as mood stabilizers, a couple of them being lithium and sodium valproate. Some drugs are also antipsychotic, also known as neuroleptics, which are used in the treatment of the manic episodes. There are also antidepressants that are prescribed but there has been no solid result on how these are beneficial to sufferers. Until studies say otherwise, these medications and therapies are the most accepted treatments for people with bipolar disorder.