Bipolar disorder is a serious mental disorder in which the person has periods of alternate mood, for days, months or years, from depression, when there is deep sadness, mania, extreme euphoria or hypomania, which is a milder version of mania.
Also called bipolar disorder, bipolar and manic depressive disorder, this disease affects men and women alike and can begin in adolescence or from the age of 30.
- It is important to remember that not all mood swings involve bipolar disorder.
- For the disease to be identified it is necessary to undergo an assessment by the psychiatrist or psychologist.
- Which will detect how the person is living the phases and how they are interfering in their daily life.
Characteristic symptoms of bipolar disorder are drastic mood swings that can include several symptoms, such as those listed below:
The phases a person with bipolar disorder lives usually last between weeks and months, but there may also be periods of remission, in which there is a normal and unchanged mood.Episodes are:
This is the period during which the person has symptoms and depressive signs such as unhappiness, irritability or pessimism, lasting at least 2 weeks.This is usually the longest episode and can persist for years, and many people end up being treated for depression.bipolar disorder.
Learn how to identify symptoms that indicate depression
It is an overly cheerful mood, with extreme euphoria, feeling energy, restlessness, mania for greatness and little need to sleep.There may also be irritability, aggression or delusional and paranoid ideas, so this can also be confused with schizophrenia.
To characterize an episode of mania, at least 3 or 4 of the symptoms must last at least 1 week, these symptoms cause many problems to the person, interfering in their relationships and daily life, being the main cause of hospitalization of people with this disease.Learn more about bipolar mania.
When the person alternates between depression and mania, the disease is classified as bipolar disorder type 1.
These are symptoms similar to those of mania, but they are milder and do not interfere so much in the daily life of the person, there is usually more talk, sociability, impulsivity, less need for sleep, greater capacity for initiative, energy for activities and impatience..
To detect hypomania these symptoms should last at least 4 days, hypomania usually happens fast and lasts less than a week, so it doesn’t always identify.
When the person alternates between depression and hypomania, without a manic state, the illness is classified as type 2 bipolar disorder.
Bipolar disorder cannot be cured, but can be controlled with medications prescribed by the psychiatrist and psychotherapy sessions.You can also choose to do light therapy sessions, a special therapy that uses various colored lights to change the mood of the individual.
Pharmacological treatment includes mood stabilizers, which control manic episodes, such as lithium or valprotic acid, for example, and antipsychotics such as olanzapine or aripiprazole, which are used if symptoms of depression and mania persist.
In addition, antidepressants may also be used to help control depression, such as fluoxetine, for example, which should be associated with an antipsychotic to prevent episodes of mania, and possibly combine anxiolytics, which help reduce anxiety and improve sleep.Benzodiazepines.
Group therapy and family therapy are also good options for treating bipolar disorder.Learn more about treating bipolar disorder.