Course, Cause and Treatment of Bi-Polar disorder Research Paper

Course, Cause and Treatment of Bi-Polar disorder - Research Paper Example Course, Cause and Treatment of Bi-Polar disorder The symptoms that characterize the manic episode include elevated mood, hyperactivity that involves high levels of energy, lack of self control, flight of thoughts and grandiosity. During this stage the individual may have an inflated self-esteem and the individual becomes over-involved in activities; particularly, over-indulgence in sexual activity and promiscuity that can be seriously detrimental for the individual’s personal health and well-being. The individual may also get involved in other kinds of reckless behavior such as binge eating, drug abuse, impaired hindsight or judgment and may even shop excessively. Due to lack of self-control, the individual exhibits an irritable mood and is prone to lash out at other people; in other words, they lose their temper quite often that causes them to behave in a manner that has heavy and often debilitating consequences. They experience inability to concentrate on their work, as a result are easily distracted and may even have little or no need for sleep at all. On the other hand, the depressive phase has symptoms that are exactly the opposite of the manic phase and the symptoms are similar to that experienced by the sufferers of Major depressive disorder. The symptoms experienced during the depressive stage are low mood, anhedonia; which is complete lack of interest in activities that were previously found pleasurable, difficulty concentrating, faces problems in remembering things and indecisiveness. The individual faces gross psychomotor retardation; as his movements slows down, he or she may feel tired all the time and loses his or her self-esteem. The phase is characterized by crying spells, persistent sadness, negative thoughts; which are usually about death and suicidal ideation. (Moore & Jefferson, 2004) The individual’s social life is hampered as well and begins avoiding social situation. The individual experiences increased and often displaced amount of guilt along with feelings of worthlessness and dejection. The individual may either lose weight due to lack of appetite; however, in some cases the individual may indulge in binge eating and may gain excessive amount of weight that may result in obesity if the depression is not treated in time. The individual has sleep disturbances and like the eating disorder, he or she may either experience insomnia or hypersomnia that is the individual either sleeps too little or excessively. Either way, individuals are likely to commit suicide during the depressive and during the manic phase, they can do serious damage to their health by abusing drugs and alcohol or indulging in unsafe sexual activity. (Moore & Jefferson, 2004) The individual may experience these symptoms simultaneously or even these can overlap each other resulting in a state that is often called the â€Å"mixed state†. Throughout the course of the disorder, the individual may also have a phase, which is normal and may experience normal level of mood. However, before making the diagnosis that an individual suffers from bi-polar disorder, clinicians must rule the following disorders.