Bipolar Children Disorders
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It has been found that bipolar disorder in children can start from as early as 6 years old. And is the case with children, they must be observed long enough to distinguish the difference between their bipolar behavior and their normal child behavior patterns. Also needed to be taken into consideration are the problems that children develop that can have similarities with bipolar disorders. But nonetheless, the same criteria used to diagnose adults are also used for the diagnosis of children. Modifications are needed though due to age.
Symptoms of Bipolar Children Disorders
Children with bipolar disorder are often misdiagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD). This is because ADHD and bipolar disorder share similar symptoms like hyperactive, irritable and being easily distracted. Therefore, it cannot be concluded that the child has bipolar mania due to these symptoms. Signs that are specific to bipolar disorder and not ADHD are sleeping too much, unusual sexual activities, jubilant and euphoric moods, flights of ideas and grandiose behaviors.
Children who have grandiose behaviors often think that they are so smart and tell authority figures and others what they should do. They also think that rules and regulations do not apply to them. Some even go as far as thinking that they are superhuman. Getting only 4 to 6 hours of sleep nightly is also common in bipolar disorder children. They could do activities like playing games all night and moving furniture and the following day they would not show any signs of tiredness.
Bipolar children and bipolar adolescents with mania also show increased signs of unusual sexual activity and can be very flirtatious for their age. They may also try to touch others, including adults, in private areas and they may use very explicit sexual language.
Being extremely happy or breaking into almost hysterical laughter is what is experienced by children who have euphoric moods. But looking at these children, you would think that they are just excited to be going to a certain place or event. Teachers and parents often observe this type of behavior. Signs of a child having flight of ideas often include a rapid change between topics when they are talking and can be triggered by any one thing at anytime.
The other symptoms for bipolar children are the tendency to have many cycles of these behaviors during a day’s time. Going from the elated high moods all the way down to heavy depressed moods that can even cause suicide attempts.
Bipolar Children Disorder Treatments
Children and teenagers also use similar medications to the ones often prescribed for adults. Mood stabilizing agents have been thought to be useful in the treatment of bipolar disorder children. These include valproate, lithium and Tegretol (carbamazepine). The long term use of medication in children though has been an area of concern. Therefore, more studies are being done on this.
Make sure your child is properly diagnosed before medicating them. Since ADHD and bipolar disorder can overlap in some of their symptoms this is a difficult job to tell the difference. Make sure to use a doctor who has a background with bipolar disorder in children to treat your child.
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June 10th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Its awful when you’re in that hole with depression, but I believe you can climb out of it, its a long journey but boy is it worth it, as the suffering and the experience in the long term becomes an asset. Would you agree?