Manic Depression And Bipolar Disorder

In about half of all cases, the first symptoms of this progressive neurological disease are psychiatric ones (Kolata, 1986). Patients may be depressed or irrational, forgetful or disoriented. Those who do not start out with psychiatric symptoms start with movement disorders "clumsiness and an unsteady gait. It has been suspected for years now that there is a strong genetic component to bipolar disorder. For example, if one identical twin has bipolar disorder, the other has a nearly 80% chance of having it too. If one member of a pair of fraternal twins has the illness, the other member has about a 20% chance of having it. When adopted persons with bipolar disorder were studied, investigators found that more than 30% of their biological parents also had bipolar disorder, but only 2% of the adoptive parents did (Kolata, 1986). The majority of patients with bipolar disorder will experience significant symptoms before the age of 25 years. However, there are some patients who develop new onset of illness in much later decades. Onset of symptoms of bipolar illness after the age of 60 years is likely due to secondary medical causes including major medical or neurological illnesses. As stated before there is somewhat of an association between the rate of certain types of paring of family members to have bipolar disorder. The individuals who have this disorder have wayward brain chemicals and genes gone bad which seem to bully people back and forth between weeks of moderate-to-intense euphoria and comparable spells of soul-deadening depression. A few weeks of relative calm spells often separate these disparate .
             Ostrander 3.
             moods. These different moods swings are mainly controlled by the drug Lithium. Lithium treatment was introduced into psychiatry approximately 50 years ago by John Cade, but was not approved by the Federal Drug Administration until the 1970's (Dunner, 2000). Since then lithium has become established for the treatment of acute mania and for maintenance treatment for patients who have bipolar I and bipolar II disorder.