According to the latest issue of Family Practice News, pediatric bipolar disorder may be completely replaced with a new diagnosis, “temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria” or “TDDD”. This is a leak from the discussions of new diagnoses in the upcoming DSM V, due to come out in 2013. According to Doctor David Cohen, this new diagnosis is partly designed to account for the twenty percent or so of children who never develop bipolar disorder as an adult. Should this rumor turn out to be true, it would mean that pediatric bipolar disorder would be impossible, by definition.
At first, it might look like the introduction of TDDD will end the debate about bipolar disorder in children. After all, if children can’t have bipolar disorder by definition, then there is no longer a debate about overdiagnosis. However, should TDDD come to be introduced, the debate will simply shift to the diagnosis of TDDD. TDDD still has many of the same symptoms of bipolar disorder and will still be treated by second-generation antipsychotics. In some ways, defining the new disorder will actually solidify the position of those who support pediatric bipolar diagnoses, since a new disorder, albeit of a different name, will receive official recognition.
