Pediatric Bipolar Disorder: A Global Perspective
230 pp, $79
New York, NY, Nova Science Publishers, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1-5945-4981-6
- Gabrielle A. Carlson, MD, ReviewerChild and Adolescent PsychiatryStony Brook University School of MedicineStony Brook, New York gabrielle.carlson@stonybrook.edu
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
The psychiatric disorder formerly called manic depression has been recognized for hundreds of years. Referred to as bipolar disorder since 1980, it is a serious, chronic disorder that usually begins after puberty. The disorder is characterized by episodes of significant depression and its seeming antithesis, mania, usually sustained for weeks to months. If depression is sadness, underactivity, and unwarranted pessimism, mania is expansiveness, greatly increased energy, and undeserved optimism and grandiosity. An irritable, labile mood often characterizes both mood states. Medications to treat mania and depression as well as prevent future episodes have provided an incentive to better recognize the condition and its nuances, with the hope that treatment will diminish its morbidity and mortality.
As part of the effort to identify bipolar disorder, researchers, especially in North America, have focused their efforts on prepubertal children. For a variety of reasons, divergent views of how the condition should be defined …
