Diagnosis and treatment of unipolar and bipolar depression in the early stage

Abstract

Bipolar Disorder and Unipolar Depressive Disorder are both mental disorders that contain depressive episodes, and the patterns of depression are similar between the two diseases. People are likely to meet their clinicians for the first time when they experience depression while there is no significant evidence of the existence of mania episodesthe other episode of bipolar disorder. Therefore, it is likely that the clinicians misdiagnose the disorder, thus prescribing the wrong medication or applying therapies harmful to patients. For example, some antidepressants will stimulate the mania episode of bipolar patients, increasing the frequency of switch between extreme depression and mania, thus developing the results of bipolar disorder in the patients. At the same time, some mood stabilizers are not that effective to cure major depression compared to medication specialized in treating depression. This article aims at providing several diagnostic methods that can differentiate bipolar and unipolar disorders, and introducing some plausible therapies that work for the two disorders at the same time without severe harm or exacerbation.