New Bipolar Treatment Proves Patients Can Control Their Mania

In an exciting development concerning bipolar patients and their capacity to control their manic attacks, Australian researchers claim that they have developed a new procedure that can cut the number of manic episodes in their patients by 50%.

Bipolar disorder is characterized by extreme mood swings from periods of excitability to periods of depression and back once more. Bipolar 1 disorder affects over two million U.S. citizens each and every year. In many people, the mood swings can be so fantastic that it prevents them from being able to live a normal life. This roller coaster of emotions not only affects them, but it affects their buddies and family as well.

The new procedure essentially entails adding therapy to the bipolar treatments that the patients typically receive. In reality, therapy is not new as several physicians already believe that the most efficient treatment for bipolar illness is to use medication in mixture with prescriptions medication. But belief does not equal proof.

Researchers from the Mental Health Study Institute of Victoria (MHRI) located in Melbourne, Australia, and is Australia's largest independent psychiatric analysis center, have gone on record as believing that this study is the initial 1 that proves bipolar patients can control their mania. The exciting impact of the Australian study is that it gives credence to the value of psychotherapy in treating bipolar illness.

The Melbourne study consisted of 84 bipolar patients. Half of the patients were given medication only. The other half were give the exact same medication but in addition attended weekly therapy sessions. The therapy sessions focused on teaching the participants to recognize the widespread symptoms that may trigger a depressive or manic episode. Symptoms such as

insomnia, a considerable change in appetite, trouble concentrating, listlessness or tiredness, and other symptoms that are commonly recognized as indicating a bipolar event could be taking place.

The working theory behind the study is that if a bipolar sufferer is conscious of an impending episode, he has the chance to do some thing about it. And the theory, in this case, proved to be right. At the end of the study, the 42 patients taking the therapy, had only 50% of the manic or depressive episodes of the 42 patients that had been treated with medication alone.

The study successfully demonstrates that therapy which emphasizes and teaches the patient how to plan his life, as much as feasible, around normal daily activities and stable relationships, can assist them to suffer less manic/depressive attacks and to recover quicker from the ones that they do expertise.

Regrettably, lengthy-term therapy is not low cost and numerous insurance companies will either not cover it or cover only a portion of it. Hopefully, studies like this will aid to push the insurance businesses into recognizing that therapy is a valid and helpful treatment for bipolar illness and might even assist to decrease their lengthy term costs.

This study is also crucial and encouraging for numerous sufferers who don't want to be entirely dependent on prescription medication. It gives them a sense of hope that they can exert a portion of control over their lives that up until now has been lacking.

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