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Treatments for Bipolar Affective Disorder

People with bipolar affective suffer mood swings from extreme highs, such as mania, to extreme lows, such as depression. You may experience both mania and depression or one or the other. Symptoms of mania associated with bipolar affective disorder include feeling unusually happy and overly confident feelings needing less sleep, talking more and feeling more sociable than usual and increased sexual energy.

  1. Mood Stabilizers

    • Mood stabilizers are a prescribed medication to help control swings caused by bipolar affective disorder. This type of prescribed medication prevents a person's mood from being too high or too low.

    Antidepressants

    • Normally, lower doses of antidepressants are preferred for those suffering from bipolar affective disorder than are given for depression. A couple of types of antidepressants used to treat bipolar affective disorder include tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or also known as SSRI's. If patients do not respond well to these two types of antidepressants, other antidepressants may be tried.

    Antipsychotics

    • Some bipolar affective disorder patients will also have psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. If this happens, the doctor will prescribe antipsychotics to the patient. There are two types of antipsychotics that can be helpful in the treatment of bipolar affective disorder. These are called typical and atypical drugs. Typical antipsychotic drugs can be helpful for mania episodes but have unpleasant side effects. Atypical or newer drugs can be helpful for mania and can also help in maintaining a state of well being.

    Sedatives

    • Sedatives are sometimes required to treat mania in bipolar affective disorder patients. The good thing about sedatives is that they can treat anxiety and agitation. The bad thing about sedatives is that they can be highly addictive.

    Therapy

    • Cognitive therapy is also being used to treat bipolar affective disorder. For best results in treating this mental condition, a combination of prescription drugs and cognitive therapy is being used. If a specific therapy is needed, a patient may need to be referred to a special therapist to get the therapy he or she needs.

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