Stop the Stigma

Hope for Happiness

Visitors

2814

PEDIATRIC BIPOLAR AWARENESS

(Children and teens)

Help spread the word  

All parents can relate to the many changes their kids go through as they grow up. But sometimes its hard to tell if a child is just going through a "phase" or perhaps showing signs of something more serious. Recently, doctors have been diagnosing more children with bipolar disorder. But what does this mean for a child?

Bipolar disorder is a neurological disorder, a real medical illness. There is treatment but no cure.  It is a disorder of the brain with severe changes in mood, energy, thinking and behavior.  Just within the past 10-12 years, it was not common to diagnose kids with this disorder. Most children were diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD.  Now, with all the research and awareness, doctors can  properly diagnose and treat early-onset bipolar disorder.  Early diagnosis and treatment can reduce risks including: suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, relationship, work, and school problems. When left untreated, this disorder can make it hard to function in everyday life.

Diagnosis that cover up or sometimes occur along with bipolar disorder include:

  • depression
  • conduct disorder
  • oppositional defiant disorder
  • attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity
  • panic disorder
  • generalized anxiety disorder
  • obsessive compulsive disorder
  • Tourette's syndrome
  • intermittent explosive disorder
  • reactive attachment disorder

In adolescents, bipolar disorder is often misdiagnosed as:

  • borderline personality disorder
  • post-traumatic stress disorder
  • schizophrenia

The importance of proper diagnosis is extremely important! Talk to your healthcare professional about your concerns.

 

Comparison of Bipolar Disorder in Adults and Children

Some ways Childhood Onset Bipolar Disorder differs from adult Bipolar Disorder:
  • Children have much faster and more frequent cycles than adults
  • Children rarely have pure euphoric mania as defined by the DSM-IV. Children are more likely to have dysphoric mania or mixed states.
  • Depression in children often manifests as anger and aggression instead of sensitivity and withdrawal.
  • Children often have co-morbid conditions accompanying the bipolar disorder that are commonly found in childhood: ADD, ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome, OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and Autism, to name a few.
  • The co-morbidity of other disorders can make medical treatment very difficult in children. Children are more likely to be activated by certain medications, namely antidepressants and psychostimulants, than adults.
  • Bipolar in children is very often misidentified as unipolar depression with hyperactivity. Treatment for unipolar depression in is vastly different from treatment for bipolar in children, and can result in severe problems.
  • Children are not “little adults”, i.e., their metabolisms run differently than adults, so merely prescribing smaller doses of adult medications do not sufficiently treat bipolar disorder. Many times, the rate of metabolism in children is so great that doses larger than typical for adults need to be used.

     

     

Some ways Childhood Onset Bipolar is similar to adult Bipolar Disorder:

  • Children can be suicidal, even as young as 2 years of age. These ideations can quickly develop into plans and actions because of the impulsive nature of Bipolar Disorder and the inability to weigh consequences of actions.
  • Children with mania have the same urges that adults do in the sense that they also become hypersexual, grandiose, obsessive and desire to spend money. 
  • Children with depression also have the same tendencies as adults to avoid talking about their situation, to withdraw from activities and people once enjoyed, to require extraordinary amounts of sleep in order to function, and have a decreased stress threshold making daily functioning nearly impossible.
  • Children, like adults, require medication to stabilize, but cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has been shown quite successful in helping the child with bipolar to develop insight and control over their moods and actions. 
    Stress, just as with adults, can trigger a relapse of the bipolar condition.