Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
Haines 1
James Haines
Dr. Paulin
ENG 111-018
14 July 2014
What is Bipolar Disorder?
What if I told you that there is a disease that affects as many American adults as the entire
city of Houston’s population? The disease that I am talking about is a mental disorder known as
Bipolar or also knows as manic depression. Bipolar affects close to 5.7 million American adults
each year.[ CITATION Nat14 \l 1033 ] Bipolar disorder is defined as a brain disorder that causes
in unusual shift in moods, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day task.
Researchers believe that the cause is genetic, but it is still unknown. The biggest obstacle for
people with Bipolar disorder is that the disease severely undermines its victim’s ability to obtain
and maintain social and occupational success. Therefore, we must find out what are symptoms,
causes, and treatments of the disease.
Bipolar is a complex illness. There are many symptoms and several different types of this
disorder. The primary symptom is dramatic and unpredictable mood swings. There are two
different types of episodes Bi-polar patients experience Mania episodes, and Depressive
episodes. When a patient is in a Mania state they experience symptoms such as talking fast,
being unusually distracted, an increase in activity, restlessness, unrealistic beliefs, not sleeping,
and behaving impulsively by engaging in high risk behavior. Whereas, a patient that is in
depressive state exhibit tiredness, lack of concentration, change of habits, or thoughts of death or
suicide. These symptoms make Bipolar complex because of the extreme highs experienced in a
Mania state, and the extreme lows in the Depressive state.
Haines 2
There are several different types of Bipolar as well. They are grouped by severity of the
episodes and how often they occur in the patients. Bipolar I Disorder patients typically have
manic or mixed episodes that last between seven and ten days. The episodes are severe enough
where the patients are usually admitted to the hospital for treatment. Bipolar II Disorder patients
exhibit a pattern of depressive and hypomanic episodes, but they don’t have full blown episodes.
Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified does not meet the criteria for Disorders I and II but are
clearly out of the patient’s norm. Cyclothymia is a mild form of bipolar but has no other criteria
that match the other types of disorders. However, the most severe type is Rapid-cycling Bipolar
Disorder this occurs when a patient has more than four episodes within a year.
The causes of the disease are relatively unknown. In his article in Psych Central, Steve
