Bipolar Disorer
The phenomenon of bipolar affective disorder has been a mystery since the 16th century. Bipolar disorder or as the alternate names, manic depressive illness or affective bipolar disorder can be classified as a mood disorder characterized by mood swings from mania (exaggerated feeling of well-being) to depression. History has shown that this affliction can appear in almost anyone. Many famous and historical individuals have been said to have suffered from this disorder, most notably the great painter Vincent Van Gogh is believed to have had bipolar disorder. It is clear that in our society many people live with bipolar disorder; however, regardless of the abundance of people suffering from the it, we are still waiting for concrete reasoning for the causes and cure. The one fact of which we are painfully aware is that bipolar disorder severely undermines its' victims ability to obtain and maintain social and occupational success. It is also believed that the lithium level is what causes these mood swings. Suffers of bipolar disorder suffer from a large varity of symptoms that can be broken into manic and depressive episodes.
The depressive episodes are characterized by intense feelings of sadness and despair that can become
feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Either the manic or the depressive episodes can predominate and produce few mood swings or the patters of mood swings my be cyclic. Some of the symptoms of a depressive episode include anhedonia, disturbances in sleep and appetite, psycomoter retardation, loss of energy, feelings of worthlessness, guilt, difficulty thinking, indecision, and recurrent thoughts of death and suicide (Hollandsworth, Jr. 1990 ). Some of the other symptoms that may occur in the depressive stage can be also fatigue that can last anywhere from weeks to months and a person may not be aware of why this is actually happening. Daytime sleepiness can also occur making it hard for a person with this illness to hold down any sort of a job for a length of time. Unintentional weightloss can make the doctor go in a different direction in this making it difficult for them in diagnosis because of all the possible symptoms that a person may exhibit. A person may also have some memory loss episodes or episodes of amnesia, going blank for a periods of time. They may not even be aware that they have a family to take care of and often times lose sight of...