It is known that in patients with bipolar disorder, depressive episodes last longer than mixed or manic/hypomanic episodes and there are reports detailing the difficulties confronted in its treatment. The concept of treatment resistant depression in bipolar disorder has not been as well described as that in treatment resistant unipolar depression. Here we present two patients with treatment res...

A 24-year-old woman presented with asymptomatic hyperpigmented bilateral patches on her temples, eyelids and forehead since birth. Furthermore, the patient had a congenital grey patch, compatible with Mongolian spot, on her buttock. She had no vascular or other cutaneous lesion. Histopathologic examination revealed bipolar dendritic melanocytes dispersed in a ribbon-like pattern between the col...

OBJECTIVE to explain comparatively how economic and family caregiver burden in families with bipolar disorder patients change overtime. METHOD one year follow-up of economic and family caregiver burden was carried out on family caregivers of 190 bipolar, 55 diabetes, hypertension and asthma patients and 659 sick controls in the community. Population average generalized estimating equation was...

Editorial The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) has broadened the criteria for specified bipolar disorders with the introduction of the diagnostic category of ‘other specified bipolar and related disorders’ (DSM-5: 296.89). In a prior editorial, we critically discussed how the way we diagnose bipolar disorders may impact treatment decisions, espe...

BACKGROUND A thyroid stimulating hormone level is commonly measured in patients presenting with symptoms of mania in order to rule out an underlying general medical condition such as hyperthyroidism or thyrotoxicosis. Indeed, many cases have been reported in which a patient is initially treated for bipolar mania, but is later found to have a thyroid condition. Several case reports have noted th...

BACKGROUND Patients with bipolar disorder exhibit consistent deficits in facial affect identification at both behavioral and neural levels. However, little is known about which stages of facial affect processing are dysfunctional. METHOD Event-related potentials (ERPs), including amplitude and latency, were used to evaluate two stages of facial affect processing: N170 to examine structural en...

OBJECTIVE We implemented a set of processes of care measures for bipolar disorder that reflect psychosocial, patient preference and continuum of care approaches to mental health, and examined whether veterans with bipolar disorder receive care concordant with these practices. METHOD Data from medical record reviews were used to assess key processes of care for 433 VA mental health outpatients...