Bipolar Today

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I’ll be continuing my coverage of the ECNP congress in Paris today. An important talk was given by Doctor Ellen Leibenluft, who argued that a common mistake in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children is to confuse it with chronic irritability. According to many who diagnose bipolar disorder in children, chronic irritability in children is a sign of bipolar disorder. Doctor Leibenluft argues that this is simply mistaken. She cites two studies that each show that children with chronic irritability are not at any higher risk of developing mania when they reach adulthood. Children with bipolar disorder, on the other hand, should have episodic periods of irritability, in conformity with the standard cyclicalness of the disorder. A full discussion of this issue can be found at Family Practice News

Commentary

This is an interesting contribution the debate on bipolar disorder in children. On the one hand, bipolar diagnoses have skyrocketed in the last decade. On the other hand, it makes sense that bipolar disorder in adults may account for some psychological problems that they may have had as children (I know that I had serious mood problems as a child). Unfortunately, so much of the debate is a false dilemma between believing in pediatric bipolar disorder or not. What Doctor Leibenluft identifies is a specific source of some overdiagnosis among children. This can account for some of the troubling statistics without treating bipolar disorder among children as being some sort of scam.

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