:: June 2009

Welcome to our Monthly Online Newsletter!

View all Treatment articles in our Treatment Report . The most recent articles are listed on top (not in alphabetical order). Click on the Topic on our home page and then the subtopic - Treatment Report. Stay updated on drugs and their side effects, and various other treatments, including exercise, nutrition, and supplements.

Highlighted Article

Rapid switching of mood in families with familial bipolar disorder. (Bipolar Disord. 2008)

Clinical Guidelines

Diagnostic guidelines for bipolar depression: a probabilistic approach. (Bipolar Disord. 2008)

NGC - Bipolar affective disorder. A national clinical guideline. (2005)

NGC - Management of persons with psychoses.

NGC - Practice guideline for the treatment of patients with bipolar disorder (revision). (2002)

SIGN - Bipolar affective disorder (2005)

Internet Sites

Featured site

NIH - Bipolar

NIH - Bipolar Disorder Resources

NIH - Lithium (Systemic)

NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Bipolar disorder

NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Bipolar disorder - depressed

NIH - NIMH Bipolar Disorder

Related Topics - Highlighted Articles

Depression

Reevaluating therapies for bipolar depression. (J Clin Psychiatry. 2005) "Although the antidepressant efficacy of most mood stabilizers has not been satisfactorily proven, first-line therapy with 1 mood stabilizer alone or a combination of 2 mood stabilizers is still recommended by many guidelines. Inappropriate treatment of bipolar depression may leave patients at high risk of suicide and increased chronicity of symptoms; effective therapy should, therefore, be provided as early as possible. The efficacy and safety of antidepressants for bipolar depression both as monotherapy and when combined with a mood stabilizer should be studied in adequately powered trials in order to revise treatment guidelines."

Schizophrenia

Evidence of genetic overlap of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: Linkage disequilibrium analysis of chromosome 18 in the Costa Rican population. (Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2005) "The long-standing concept that schizophrenia (SC) and bipolar disorder (BP) represent two distinct illnesses has been recently challenged by findings of overlap of genetic susceptibility loci for these two diseases. We report here the results of a linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis of chromosome 18 utilizing subjects with SC from the Central Valley of Costa Rica."

In this newsletter:

Diagnosis, Imaging, and Screening
General Information
Risk Factors
Risk Reduction

	Diagnosis, Imaging, and Screening
Bipolar Disorder 'misdiagnosed In A Quarter Of Cases' “They found that over 25% of the patients with bipolar disorder had initially had their condition misdiagnosed as unipolar depression. Misdiagnosis often occurs because the symptoms of bipolar disorder overlap with depression and other psychiatric disorders. However, misdiagnosis can cause serious problems. For example, if people are wrongly prescribed antidepressants this can make their bipolar illness worse.” Corpus callosum size and shape alterations in individuals with bipolar disorder and their first-degree relatives. (Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2009) White matter microstructural impairments and genetic liability to familial bipolar I disorder. (Br J Psychiatry. 2009)

	General Information
Bipolar disorder and aggression. (Int J Clin Pract. 2009) Cognitive impairment in early and late bipolar disorder. (Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2009) “CONCLUSIONS: Older patients with bipolar disorder have substantial cognitive impairments. Late onset bipolar disorder is associated with more severe cognitive impairment than early-onset bipolar disorder. For clinical practice, it is important to develop treatment strategies which take this into account.” How common are psychotic and bipolar disorders? A 50-year follow-up of the Lundby population. (Nord J Psychiatry. 2009)

	Risk Factors

	Risk Reduction