If you need successful treatment of a bipolar disorder, the right diagnosis is an absolute must. Diagnosis is not straightforward as symptoms of bipolar disorder are episodic. A detailed medical and mental health history of you and your family is required. Even though bipolar disorder is a psychological illness, an exhaustive medical record is taken and a thorough physical exam is required to rule out any sort of physical cause of the symptoms.
Diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder
It is of the utmost importance that a complete history of current and past symptoms be taken into account when giving the patient’s history. Depressed patients often experience psychomotor retardation, have a decreased routine, decreased rate of speech as well as other symptoms. Manic patients tend to experience the opposite in terms of activity, speech and routine.
Depressed Patients
Some patients suffering with the depressive state of bipolar disorder may have delusions and hallucinations. According to a study conducted on depressed patients, have a pessimistic view of themselves and of the world, many have attempted suicide or contemplated it.
Manic Patients
Manic patients are very euphoric, excited and hyperactive; they can appear psychotic to people who do not understand that they are having a manic episode. The speech of manic patients becomes louder, faster and tough to interpret as they can be filled with jokes, rhymes, word salad, neologisms and irrelevancies. Manic patients have difficulty concentrating on one topic and exhibit flight of ideas. Many manic persons have delusions of grandeur, boast of extraordinary abilities, affluence or power. Apart from that, they can have a low frustration tolerance and become very irritable.
Thorough medical history
A thorough medical history and physical exam should be implemented to exclude any possible physical causes for the mood swings such as head injury, AIDS and diabetes. Medicine taken by the patient should be accounted for because corticosteroids and drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease, depression and anxiety can lead to the bipolar-type mood symptoms.
Experts also advise blood and urine tests for drugs and alcohol to rule out physiological effects of these substances. Your health care provider will also ask for the family medical history because recent studies have concluded that bipolar disorder has a strong genetic association.
Detecting Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is quite tough to differentiate from other conditions and, despite advancements in medical technology, there is no distinct method to detect bipolar disorder. Because there is no way to definitively diagnose bipolar disorder with a simple barrage of tests, many individuals suffer from bipolar disorder for a long time before getting a right diagnosis and treatment.
Dual Nature
Bipolar disorder is dual in nature, which makes it tough for the condition to be detected easily. Recent research has come to the conclusion that during the manic or hypomanic stage, affected patients seldom ask for treatment because of feelings of euphoria and extreme optimism. When they experience depression they may not seek help because of low feelings. They may have coping mechanisms that hide the symptoms so other people are unable to seek help for them.
Professional Help
Most people will seek professional help when they are in the depressive phase but they tend to take into account only the depressive symptoms they experience and do not initially give details of mania. Due to this, they are often incorrectly diagnosed with depression instead of bi polar disorder. The diagnosis becomes more complex because the symptoms in bipolar disorder are similar to other psychiatric disorders.
Questionnaire and Exams
There is no laboratory test to detect bipolar disorder, but mental health professionals can determine if an individual has bipolar disorder symptoms. They will sometimes make use of a questionnaire. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire, or MDQ, works to get a complete psychiatric history, medical history and physical exam. If no physical cause is found, and the symptoms lean in the direction of bipolar disorder, the patient will be diagnosed and begin treatment. Scans like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron-Emission Tomographic (PET) can also go a long way in detecting abnormalities in the brain which can lead to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
