Children and Bipolar Disorder Disorder

They were dangerous and to be feared. In extreme cases an exorcism was performed to oust the demons or unclean spirits. Poor people were often committed to insane asylums and treated horrifically and badly abused. In seventeenth-century England people with mental health disorders were chained up in dungeons like criminals. A hospital in London sometimes publicly flogged the patients for entertainment. In the 1800s, Dr. Philippe Pinel threw away the notion that mental health patients were equal to criminals and banished restraints like shackles and chains; instead he let the patients have the freedom to roam around the grounds of the hospital and get exercise. Dorothea Dix a mental health reform pioneer who also wanted to stop the myths and stereotypes, started lobbying in 1840 to create thirty-two mental-health state hospitals to stop the horrific abused she observed. This took her four decades to accomplish. Recent studies have accepted that bipolar disorder is an accepted legitimate clinical diagnosis in children. There are several reasons for clinical confusion that a parent or doctor may not have diagnosed bipolar disorder in their child or patient. The following are some of the reasons:.
             1. Wait to see if there are any changes as the child develops.
             2. Typical teen behavior resulting from hormonal changes.
             3. Your child's behavior is manageable.
             4. You are scared and in denial.
             5. Feeling of pressure by family members to not explore mental-health support.
             6. Worried about your child being singled out or stigmatized.
             7. Believing there is a different cause for the mental-health issue.
             The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is a standard reference for mental-health practitioners. It is an accepted resource's that provides a starting point for a doctor to diagnosis your child with a mental-health issue. This guide is not to be used by anyone other than a physician; it is very technical and full of information that may be intimidating and hard to read by a lay-person.