Bipolar Disorder Final Paper

8/3/2019 Bipolar Disorder Final Paper

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BIPOLAR DISORDER

Bipolar also known as Manic-depressive illness is a mood disorder. It

is considered as Psychiatric disorder described by mood swings and

erratic levels of energy which lasts for weeks to months. Bipolar as

the word indicates are the opposite ends of the mood spectrumwhere dramatic swings of elation and sadness moves. A person with

bipolar disorder may be in ecstasy for a period and would be very

sad and depressed after.


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Bipolar Disorder History

Bipolar disorder has been acknowledged by the medical community for many years, but it is not

known exactly when people began to recognize it for what it truly is: a mental disorder with a

specific set of symptoms, namely periods of mania followed by periods of extreme depression.However, we do know that depression and mania were both recognized and given names by theancient Greeks.

It is believed that the earliest descriptions of a relationship between mania and depression were

written in the second century.

Bipolar Disorder: Early Descriptions

Soranus of Ephesus, who lived from 98 AD to 177 AD, described depression and mania as

separate afflictions but stated that many people believed depression to be a symptom or a result

of mania.

However, the earliest known written description of bipolar disorder is accredited to Aretaeus ofCappadocia, a philosopher who lived in Turkey sometime between 30 AD and 150 AD. Aretaeus

is recognized as having the most surviving texts on the subject of an illness that has both manicand depressive qualities, though his work was not recognized until many years after it was

produced.

History of Contemporary Bipolar Disorder

The basics of the modern idea of bipolar disorder originate from ideas put forth in the 1850s. In1854, a French researcher named Jules Baillarger put forth ideas describing a biphasic mentalillness that caused people to go back and forth between periods of mania and periods of

depression.

Two weeks after Baillarger's ideas were put forth, another French researcher, Jean-Pierre Falret,presented similar findings and conclusions on the disorder. Falret called the disease "circular

insanity," while Baillarger had dubbed it "dual-form insanity." Falret also was the first to notethe connection between bipolar disorder and suicide and was the first to realize that bipolar

disorder had a genetic predisposition. Both of these French researchers noted that bipolardisorder differed from simple depression and schizophrenia.

In the early 1900s, a German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin researched the effects andsymptoms of bipolar disorder by observing untreated individuals with the disorder. He noted the

periods of mania and the periods of depression as well as the fact that patients went for periodsof time without symptoms of either mania or depression. He came up with the term "manic-

depressive psychosis" during this period of observation and study.


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Manic-depressive illness became the most-used term for the disorder inthe 1950s, and this term is sometimes still used in place of bipolar

disorder, which is a more recent name for the illness that was coined inthe 1980s.

History of Bipolar Disorder Treatment

It wasn't until 1950 that an Australian psychiatrist and researcher named John Cade discoveredthat lithium could be used to treatment manic-depressive psychosis. He experimented with many

compounds and their effects on the disorder. This was the first instance of any discovery for amedicinal treatment of a mental disorder, coming even before treatments for schizophrenia and

anxiety were discovered.

However, throughout most of the 1960s, bipolar disorder patients were institutionalized in mostcases and weren't given much help, as the government refused to acknowledge bipolar disorder

as an actual illness. It wasn't until the 1970s that laws were enacted to help those with bipolar

disorder.

More discoveries are still being made regarding bipolar disorder, and research will continue to

provide more insight into this very complex illness.

References

1. http://www.bipolar-information.com/2. http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&biw=1366&bih=665&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbn

id=PQfnvLuPnKT8kM:&imgrefurl=http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/medicalpubs/disease

management/psychiatry-psychology/bipolar-

disorder/&docid=Hb3v81KoWvb7EM&imgurl=http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/medicalp

ubs/diseasemanagement/psychiatry-psychology/bipolar-disorder/images/bipolar-disorder-

fig2_large.jpg&w=700&h=723&ei=Gq_oTt3VMvGaiAe7pOHdCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=584&vp

y=305&dur=2432&hovh=228&hovw=221&tx=142&ty=184&sig=100536515497531724209&page

=2&tbnh=132&tbnw=128&start=21&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:21

3. http://www.sharingbipolar.com/info/living-and-coping-with-bipolar-disorder/


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4. http://www.onlinemedicinetips.com/mental-health/bipolar-disorder/What-Is-Bipolar-Disorder.html

5. http://www.tree.com/health/bipolar-disorder-history.aspx

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Bipolar Disorder Final Paper