New UK Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder set by NICE
New guidelines in UK (England) set to raise awareness and improve identification, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adults.
"The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health have today (26 July) launched a clinical guideline on the identification, treatment and management of bipolar disorder in children and adults.
Bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depression) is a serious mental health condition characterized by the presence of episodes of mania and depression. During a manic episode, the person usually has feelings of elation, irritability, or both. They may also feel over-confident and be driven to take unnecessary risks. When a person has depression they feel low and lose pleasure in things they used to enjoy and may also have other symptoms such as feeling tired all the time, sleep problems, poor concentration, feelings of worthlessness and/or guilt and thoughts of suicide or harming oneself.
The guideline calls for more to be done to ensure that bipolar disorder is correctly identified and recognized by health professionals and sets out the criteria for when patients need to be referred on for specialist psychiatric assessment and treatment. It also sets out the drug treatment options for people with bipolar disorder and emphasizes the need to involve service users in treatment decisions. Other recommendations cover the need for annual physical health checks for people with bipolar disorder and the need for all healthcare professionals to monitor carefully the medication taken by patients."
Read full press release
PDF: 2006/035
New guidelines set to raise awareness and improve identification, diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adults26 July 2006
At a glance info on the new guidelines
Related Articles:
A Call for Mental Disorder Checks
Posted by Michelle Roberts at July 26, 2006 11:04 AM
More Information on
Bipolar Disorder Symptoms & Diagnosis
Educating the appropiate professionals about diagnositic criteria for bipolar will ensure correct diagnoses are given and appropriate treatment is implemented and monitered. This disorder is thought to be misdiagnosed frequently. The new guidelines should assist in reducing the number of incorrectly diagnosed cases.
Posted by: Grant at July 26, 2006 8:32 PM
My son is currently in jail for drug use. this time it is for 1 mo. that is way too long for a bipolar person to be locked. When he gets out he is so manic the cicle startl over again. I wish these judges would have a different control for when this happens. I can see a week or two but a month and he isn't getting the correct meds. What can we do???
Posted by: Pat Downey at April 12, 2007 12:00 PM
Educating the appropiate professionals about diagnositic criteria for bipolar will ensure correct diagnoses are given and appropriate treatment is implemented and monitered. This disorder is thought to be misdiagnosed frequently. The new guidelines should assist in reducing the number of incorrectly diagnosed cases.
Posted by: Grant at July 26, 2006 8:32 PM
My son is currently in jail for drug use. this time it is for 1 mo. that is way too long for a bipolar person to be locked. When he gets out he is so manic the cicle startl over again. I wish these judges would have a different control for when this happens. I can see a week or two but a month and he isn't getting the correct meds. What can we do???
Posted by: Pat Downey at April 12, 2007 12:00 PM