Bipolar Disorder Daily News Blog

Researching Drug Interventions in Bipolar Offspring: Current Ongoing Research

Here is a Blog about Stanford Medical Center and Lucile Packard Children's Hospitals recent research into treating children who exhibit symptoms, but do not meet the diagnostic criteria for Bipolar I or II with mood stabilizers (Davalproex). The study was headed by Dr. Kiki Chang, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the School of Medicine and a psychiatrist at Packard Children's Hospital.

"Our goal is to identify these children early for treatment and perhaps prevention," Chang said. "If we can prevent bipolar disease in childhood, we can prevent later treatment resistance and future complications like substance abuse, poor work and school performance, and even suicide."

They found that "78 percent of study participants were either very much improved or much improved in their mood or behavioral disorders", yet no control group was used, so further research is definitely needed to rule out pacebo effect an othe variables. Dr. Chang states he will be conducting these much needed studies.

Dr. Chang and his colleagues are aware of the connectuion between unipolar depression and ADHD as being possible predictors for Bipolar disorder and plan to conduct further studies to examine their connections and possibly find other indicators. He is also concerned with the increase in treating children with drugs for ADHD, standard medications for other mood and behavior disorders, as well as anxiety disorders. He believes that children predisposed to bipolar disorder will not do well with these treatments, and they could cause greater severity in bipolar symptoms in the future.

"We want to raise awareness about these kids and the idea that perhaps they will be better treated with mood stabilizers," said Chang’s colleagues at Stanford.

Read Blog:

Researching Drug Interventions in Bipolar Offspring: Current Ongoing Research Brain Blogger (www.brainblogger.com)July 23rd, 2006

More Info:

Stanford, Packard Research Finds Better Drug Therapy For Children Predisposed To Bipolar Disorder