In bipolar I, manic episodes are more intense. The resulting mood swings, from the lows of depression to the high levels of mania, make keeping a job and dealing with life's problems difficult. With bipolar II, the manic phase, called hypomania, is mild in comparison. Bipolar disorder (sometimes called manic-depressive) is different.
If you do, you have extreme mood swings. You experience periods of depression (similar to those of MDD). But you also have periods of great ups and downs. Bipolar depression is the leading cause of morbidity in patients with bipolar disorder (Baldessarini et al.
These shifting moods don't always follow a set pattern, and depression doesn't always follow manic phases. Given the abundance of patients with depressive illnesses presenting for treatment in primary care, it is certain that all primary care providers will be responsible for recognizing, diagnosing and treating diseases that are defined by depressive symptoms, including bipolar disorder. Researchers often specialize in unipolar or bipolar disorder, and cross-fertilization between these two areas has been slower than ideal, despite some notable exceptions. In summary, bipolar and unipolar depression seem to be comparably linked to psychosocial predictors and neurotransmitter correlates, pointing to a common etiology that would be susceptible to similar psychosocial interventions.
However, it's important to know the signs and symptoms of bipolar disorder and seek early intervention. An intriguing question is whether personality traits predict the course of illness in bipolar depression. We believe that the gaps in the consideration of these fundamental dimensions of the heterogeneity of depression have been guided by the inability to label lifelong depression as a distinct characteristic of mania within bipolar disorder. Evidence for carbamazepine for short- or long-term use for bipolar depression is very limited (Table), and controlled trials for other anticonvulsants in EB are lacking (Reinares et al.
Rather than simply being an academic exercise, distinguishing mania and depression as separate syndromes is vital to improving research design. As a consequence of this dichotomy in diagnostic nomenclature, research in mood disorders tends to focus on bipolar disorder as a whole, regardless of the polarity of the episode in bipolar disorder or unipolar depression. Mania and depression could be conceptualized as highly comorbid conditions, as could anxiety and depression. This type of duality is exemplified in the DSM diagnostic system, with unipolar and bipolar disorders categorized as separate branches in the mood disorder diagnosis tree.
Participants with bipolar disorder and unipolar disorder have been found to report serious and independent life events prior to a depressive episode. If you have bipolar disorder, you may also have another medical condition that needs to be treated along with bipolar disorder. As the father of current psychiatric nosology, Kraeplin was one of the first to distinguish individuals with mania from those with and without depression. For current questions, it is necessary to examine the course of depression within bipolar disorder compared to unipolar disorder.
