Bipolar Disorder

More than two million American adults, or about one percent of the population age eighteen and older in any given year, have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder typically develops in late adolescence or early adulthood. However, some people have their first symptoms during childhood, and some develop them late in life. It is often not recognized as an illness, and people may suffer for years before it is properly diagnosed and treated. Like diabetes or heart disease, bipolar disorder is a long-term illness that must be carefully managed throughout a person's life.

Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering.

• What Are the Symptoms?
• What Is the Course?
• Can Children and Adolescents Have it?
• Causes
• Treatments
• Other Illnesses and Co-occurance
• Get Help for Bipolar Disorder
• Clinical Studies