Mistakenly Diagnosing Bipolar Disorder
Some 60 percent of adults with bipolar disorder are misdiagnosed as just being depressed. Dr. Charles Schaffer, a Sacramento psychiatrist specializing in bipolar disorder, says simply: “That’s the problem with psychiatry. Our diagnoses are not as valid or reliable as in other specialties”.
An article appearing originally in the Sacramento Bee and distributed via the APA reports on the problem of mistaking bipolar disorder for depression:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Kent Mulkey got a divorce, moved to California and took antidepressants to deal with his depression.
Still, he couldn’t control his reckless behavior.
“When it all comes down to it, and the jig is up, I’ll kill myself,” is what he figured. “That was my default. I saw it as my way out.”
Fortunately, a solution came 10 years into Mulkey’s mental illness, he said, when his doctor determined he wasn’t suffering from depression alone, but had a milder form of bipolar disorder — also known as manic-depressive illness.
Mulkey is among the 35 percent of people whose accurate mental health diagnosis is delayed for a decade, and among the 60 percent of adults with bipolar disorder who are misdiagnosed as just being depressed.
Teasing apart psychiatric symptoms, finding the right medications and dosages to treat them — and getting the patient to comply with the regimen — are the fundamental challenges of psychiatry, the medical specialty that focuses on mental illness.
The rest of the article is available at APA PsycPort.
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This article was last reviewed by on Thursday, 2nd February 2006. You can leave a response below.
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3rd February 2006
awesome
10th May 2007
My granddaughter has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I have not been able to find a doctor that I belive knows what to do to help her. You have been recommended to me as the BEST. Please contact me with a date and time for a appointment. I will do anything to get the best help for her.
Thank you.
Wilma Brinton
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