“Since the mid-1990s, the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has increased a staggering 4,000 percent.” However, many child psychiatrists are taking a second look at this condition. Bipolar disorder was “astonishly rare” in children until Dr. Janet Wozniak realized that “‘This child that I was thinking of as having really difficult-to-treat ADHD and a lot of parent-child interaction problems, I really was ignoring the serious mood component of their problem.’” She realized that kids could be bipolar. However, there were many critics to her theory, although it won awards when put into a paper, and quickly gained national acclaim. Her critics pointed out that the kids Wozniak treated rarely, if ever, had the weeklong to month-long manic or depressive episodes normal to bipolar disorder, but were much more frequent, switching back and forth many times in a day. Furthermore, “Critics countered that bipolar should look the same in kids and adults, that there wasn’t good evidence that these kids grew up to be bipolar, and that if you looked backward at bipolar adults, they didn’t necessarily have these uncontrolled anger issues when they were young.”
Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist at Stony Brook University, argues that the bipolar diagnosis took off because beforehand these children were told they had ‘conduct disorder’ which is not very treatable, and viewed as the parent’s fault. Bipolar disorder, on the other hand, could be treated, insurance companies feel more comfortable paying for a medical problem, and parents don’t feel like it’s their fault that their child is out of control: “‘Part of the acceptance of the bipolar if you’re a parent is, ‘Hey I’m off the hook on this one. It’s not ’cause I’m a bad parent, I’ve just got this kid with a genetic problem. It’s not my fault,’ ‘ says Carlson.”
The dangers of misdiagnosing bipolar disorder are very real. It’s a lifelong diagnosis, and while treatable, is managed by drugs that could have “quite profound effects on important mechanisms on the brain that may influence growth and development of the nervous system.”
To combat this problem, the American Psychiatric Association is going to make a new condition in its upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The condition will be called “temper dysregulation disorder”, and it will still be seen as a brain or biological dysfunction, but not as a necessarily lifelong condition like bipolar. However, even if they are successful in changing what the disorder is called, the medications prescribed for it may be the same ones as those for bipolar disorder. The reason for changing the name is that doctors in favor of this realize that not all of the kids diagnosed with bipolar disorder have it, and think they should have a diagnosis that reflects their particular condition.
(NPR)
Interesting post. My youngest son was diagnosed bipolar, then his doctor retracted the diagnosis. Thanks so much for sharing.
Both my children and I have been diagnosed with bipolar. I was diagnosed at the age of 26. My oldest son was diagnosed in the late 90′s at the age of 9 and the youngest at the age of 7 in early 2000. When the doctors were diagnosing my oldest son they were still in the mindset that children could not have bipolar. He was put on antidepressants which drove him into an all out manic episode, this was the turning point. The mania was sever enough that he was a danger to himself due to wreckless behaviors. He had to be put on tranquilizers for a week to get him down off the antidepressants. When my youngest was diagnosed it had been accepted by the medical community and the family history was significant. I agree there has been an alarming increase in diagnoses but is this not because we have become aware. Obviously I have a family history of bipolar, my brother definately appears to be bipolar but has never been diagnosed. As a child he was always in trouble and has struggled his entire life, he was thought to be ADD but did not respond well to the medication. My thoughts are that as parents of bipolar children it is our obligation to ensure the proper diagnoses and teach our children how to deal with this disorder which they will have for the rest of their life. The one thing I have learned over the past 15+ years is not all psychiatrist are equal. It appears that more and more of the better qualified psychiatrist are not accepting insurance and are extremely expensive.
Thank you for sharing!