Is bipolar disorder worse than depression?

In addition, bipolar disorder has more phases than major depressive disorder, including mania, hypomania and depression. But in terms of severity, neither disorder is worse or better than the other. Bipolar disorder (sometimes called manic depressive) is different. If you have it, you have extreme mood swings.

You experience periods of depression (similar to those of MDD). But you also have periods of great ups and downs. Bipolar depression is the leading cause of morbidity in patients with bipolar disorder (Baldessarini et al. There's no way to tell which one is worse than the other.

Both major depression and bipolar depression are difficult to control for several reasons. However, bipolar depression is more episodic than unipolar, which can be stressful for both the individual and the people around them. Additional search terms including bipolar depression, burden, caregiver burden, costs, economy, prevalence, quality of life and suicide were also searched individually along with “bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is thought to be caused by a combination of genetics, environment, and altered chemical structure in the brain.

Given the abundance of patients with depressive illnesses presenting for treatment in primary care, it is certain that all primary care providers will be responsible for recognizing, diagnosing and treating diseases that are defined by depressive symptoms, including bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a progressive disease with high loads and complicated sequelae, with depressive symptoms much more common than manic symptoms and responsible for most of the time patients present symptoms of their disease. If you have bipolar disorder and are having a manic episode, you may have a lot of energy, sleep very little because you are very connected, and find yourself talking faster because your thoughts are racing. All patients with depressive symptoms should be screened for bipolar disorder (Manning, 200), which should be ruled out before considering a diagnosis of unipolar depression.

Differences between subjects with bipolar disorder and lifelong major depressive episodes and subjects with major depressive disorder by sociodemographic characteristics. Because misdiagnosis is common, differentiating bipolar depression from unipolar depression is the key diagnostic priority. Primary care providers who can differentiate the presentation of symptoms of bipolar depression from unipolar depression and offer appropriate treatment options will optimize patient care in clinical practice. Major depressive disorder should only be diagnosed when bipolar disorder has been ruled out by historical and contemporary screening, as misdiagnosis often results in inadequate antidepressant monotherapy treatment and delays the start of effective treatment.

Despite mood extremes, people with bipolar disorder often don't recognize how much their emotional instability upsets their lives and those of their loved ones and don't get the treatment they need. In a non-depressed state, bipolar patients showed greater brain activity (compared to depressed patients) in a region called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in the active regulation of emotions. Psychiatric Comorbidity in Subjects with Bipolar Disorder and Lifetime Major Depressive Episodes and Subjects with Major Depressive Disorder. Psychiatric physicians overlooked the correct diagnosis of bipolar disorder in 53% of patients and primary care physicians failed to reach the diagnosis in 78% of patients (Frye et al.

BDI-I %3D bipolar I disorder; BD-II %3D bipolar II disorder; MDD %3D major depressive disorder; SE %3D standard error; O%3D odds ratio; CI %3D confidence interval; SF-12v2 %3D Medical Outcomes Study 12 items short form. .

LaToya Weitze
LaToya Weitze

Amateur internet scholar. Incurable internet evangelist. Extreme travel geek. Infuriatingly humble beer evangelist. Bacon evangelist.

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