Rates Of Bipolar Diagnosis In Youth Rapidly Climbing, Treatment Patterns Similar To Adults

The article tends to suggest that perhaps there's not a larger number of people afflicted, but rather we are getting better at the diagnosis and treatment. BD

The number of visits to a doctor's office that resulted in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents has increased by 40 times over the last decade, reported researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Over the same time period, the number of visits by adults resulting in a bipolar disorder diagnosis almost doubled. The cause of these increases is unclear. Medication prescription patterns for the two groups were similar. The study was published in the September 2007 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.