Early was more popular term manic-depressive syndrome , but now in medical practice this disease has received a more accurate name - bipolar disorder of the psyche. It consists in sharp changes in mood - from depression to megalomania, and in breaks between such ups and downs a person may well feel normal.
Bipolar disorder - symptoms
Depending on the phase, the symptoms of bipolar disorder can vary significantly. For example, the manic phase of bipolar disorder is characterized by such stages:
- Hypomanic stage: cheerfulness, excellent mood, fast speech, short sleep.
- The stage of pronounced mania: the increase in symptoms, outbursts of anger, the desire to joke and laugh, constant movement, delirium about greatness, inability to conduct a dialogue, sleep 4 hours a day.
- The stage of manic frenzy: the maximum severity of symptoms, sharp movements, speech becomes a set of slogans.
- The stage of motor rest: speech excitement and decreased motor activity.
- Reactive stage: return of symptoms to normal.
- The depressive phase is radically different from manic. In it experts identify four stages:
- The initial stage: mental depression, decreased mood, deterioration of sleep, attention, condition.
- The stage of increasing depression: anxiety, decreased efficiency, motor retardation, insomnia .
- Stage of severe depression: the maximum degree of all symptoms, delusional thoughts, accusing yourself of all problems, hallucinations.
- Reactive stage: gradual reduction of symptoms.
Treatment of bipolar disorder should necessarily take place under the supervision of a psychiatrist. It will include both medicamental and psychotherapeutic techniques.
Bipolar disorder of the psyche: the course of the disease
Bipolar disorder of the psyche has many faces and is a sequence of depressive and manic phases that can alternate. Their order and duration are individual for each patient. Typically, the first symptoms can be seen at the age of 20-30 years, but there are also cases when the symptoms began to manifest in old age.
There are the following variants of the course of the disease:
- circular flow type;
- periodic depression;
- correct-intermittent and incorrectly intermittent flow type;
- double form;
- periodic mania.
Typically, the manic phase of bipolar disorder lasts 2-5 weeks, and depressive - 6-12 months. The so-called "light" periods in which a person feels normal, can last 1-7 years, and may be absent altogether.
Bipolar disorder: causes
To date, the scientific environment does not stop disputes about what causes bipolar disorder of the psyche. Scientists put forward the following hypotheses:
- heredity, genetic predisposition;
- systematic or persistent sleep disorders;
- a stressful situation, a tendency to experience too much because of it;
- autointoxication (violation of water-electrolyte metabolism);
- drug or alcohol dependence.
However, scientific evidence and specifics regarding the causes of bipolar personality disorder do not exist at the moment. However, most mental illnesses arise and develop suddenly and unpredictably, and the causes of most of them remain a mystery even in our days of scientific progress.