Common Pharmacological Treatments of Bipolar Disorder and Subtypes: A Review
Common Pharmacological Treatments of Bipolar Disorder: A Review Diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder include one or more incidents of manic behavior characterized by disruption of sleep patterns, rapid or pressurized speech, increased distractibility, and a marked increase in goal-oriented activities (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. American Psychiatric Association, 1994). These manic episodes are accompanied by one or more major depressive episodes that include symptoms such as reduced pleasure or interest in most activities, unintended weight loss, disruption of appetite, loss of energy and agitation or retardation of psychomotor activities (DSM IV, 1994). Two major subtypes of bipolar disorder are defined in the DSM IV; bipolar I subtype indicates a higher incidence of manic manifestations and bipolar II is defined as a higher occurrence of depressive episodes (Walsh, 1998). In addition to the two major subtypes, numerous variations of bipolar I subtype have been discovered as well as axis II characterlogical manifestations such as cyclothymia (Manning, Connor, & Sahai, 1998). Bipolar disorder is frequently misdiagnosed, as a recent study has found; up to 40% of individuals currently diagnosed with bipolar disorder had been diagnosed with unipolar depression or another disorder prior to their current diagnosis and frequently not diagnosed at all (Goodwin & Ghaeni, 1998). Despite the apparent cases that are not accurately accounted for, bipolar disorder still maintains a lifetime prevalence somewhere between 1% and 2% with a modal expression of 1. 6% (Goodwin & Ghaeni). Genetic factors have also been shown to play a major role in the development of bipolar disorder; in fact this disorder has a higher degree of genetic determinant than any other disorder with some estimates indicating as high as 85% (K. J.