Bipolar Mania – About Bipolar Affective Disorder

Bipolar mania is known by many names. Some people call it manic depression; some others call it bipolar affective disorder or simply bipolar disorders. Whatever you may call it; this mental illness is characterized by the patient experiencing mood swings or mood cycles. The patient alternates between mania, normal behavior and depression. There are three kinds of phases that the patient undergoes and normally these are distinguishable from each other:

• Depression: In this phase the patient may feel extremely sad, utterly hopeless, and worthless and have low energy levels. Most patients sleep a lot in these phases.

• Mania: Mania is characterized by insomnia and above normal energy levels. The patient tends to feel deliriously happy and is distracted. He has racing thoughts and thinks about multiple things at the same time.

• Mixed periods: These phases are characterized by the patient experiencing signs of mania and depression at the same time.

What Causes Bipolar Mania?

There is no one cause of bipolar mania. A number of factors contribute to the development and cause of this disease. These can include biological, environmental, emotional and even neurological factors. Till today, researches have not been able to point out to the exact causes of bipolar mania. However, researches are going on and significant progress has been made in this direction.

Bipolar disorder can be classified into two kinds: Bipolar Mania and Bipolar Manic

• Bipolar mania: Also known as minor mania, the patient alternates between phases of depression and extreme mania

• Bipolar manic depression: In the bipolar manic the depression phase is more dominant and there are few phases of mania which are lesser in comparison.

In the earlier days when people did not know about bipolar mania, this disease was often wrongly diagnosed as schizophrenia. This is not really surprising since the patients do have hallucinations and become delusional in bipolar mania. Many a times patient may not be aware of the reality during the severe episodes.

Common Mistakes

There is a tendency to diagnose bipolar manic depression as clinical depression. This can be attributed to the fact that the patient is mostly depressed and the mania episodes are quite rare. However, there is a difference. When patients suffering from bipolar manic depression are prescribed anti depressants, they tend to display signs of bipolar mania. This classic symptom is enough to tell the doctor that the disorder is bipolar manic depression and he then can prescribe mood stabilizers.

Bipolar mania has many different kind of treatments available. A blend of medication and counseling is perhaps the most common way to treat this disorder today. The doctor may prescribe anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers and even anti-depressants.

Therapy Options

There are many options in the therapy which are traditional counseling methods,cognitive behavioral therapy, emotive behavioral therapy and rational behavioral therapy.

These days there are new advanced therapy options available such as EBT, CBT and RBT which have a high success rate. Patients who cannot be prescribed medicines for some reason show a considerable amount of success with these modern therapy methods.

Progress in the Field

Though bipolar disorder has been around for quite some time now, yet researches have made a little progress on the disease. However, with the advent of new methods and technology to know the brain and its various functions, there are chances that this disease will have a cure one day.

Meanwhile people who show symptoms of bipolar disorder or if you feel that your loved one has this disorder, then its imperative that you get in touch with a certified health expert for the correct analysis and treatment. Bipolar disorder can be sorted out if you take the courage and get it treated. Remember, you control your illness; your illness does not control you.