Toddlers Diagnosed with Bipolar

(April 21, 2006) -- Children as young as two years old are being inappropriately diagnosed and medicated for bipolar disorder, says a UK psychiatrist.

Young children are being medicated for an illness that some psychiatrists say doesn't exist (Image: iStockphoto)

Professor David Healy of Cardiff University told the Inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering recently in Newcastle, Australia, that increasing numbers of children are being treated for the condition with drugs that carry serious side-effects, without evidence the condition exists in that age group.

Healy says bipolar disorder is a condition in which someone's mood swings between highs and lows and in its most serious form this can lead to acts of suicide.

He says until recently most people believed the illness only affects older teenagers or adults but the diagnosis is now being applied to young children, particularly in the US.

He says children as young as two who are "tricky to handle, overactive or difficult in some way" are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

And he says they are increasingly prescribed drugs known as mood stabilisers, which are used to treat the condition in adults and have serious side-effects.

He says American Psychiatric Association (APA) diagnostic guidelines specify that periods of highs and lows should last for weeks at a time at least.

But he says children being diagnosed as having bipolar disorder have moods that go up and down during the course of a day.

"Every kid's mood goes up and down during the course of the day," he says.

Healy says advocates of using the diagnosis on children say the APA guidelines should be changed.

"The response from most of the rest of the world is that the Americans have gone hysterical."

Expanding treatment

Healy believes that the diagnosis of children with bipolar disorder is part of a general trend towards increasing the number of people treated with mood stabilisers, which he says have risks that are downplayed and benefits that are overplayed.

He says while a very small percentage of people have the serious form of bipolar disorder that might warrant medication, recently people with relatively mild mood swings have been treated, and this is now including children.

Healy says this spread of diagnosis is reflected in the increasing number of books on bipolar disorder aimed at clinicians, parents and children.

What he describes as a "watershed" book called The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood's Most Misunderstood Disorder sold 70,000 hardback copies in its first six months, indicating huge support for the diagnosis, he says.

"[And books for children] look for all the world like versions Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella or whatever," he says.

"They come in the same pastel colours, they show scenes of a kid who was getting into trouble and then being helped out by a kindly doctor who explains they've got a chemical imbalance and that medication will help."

Healy is paid by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to give talks on mental illness.

Australian psychiatrists also concerned

Chairperson of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists' Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Dr Phill Brock, is also concerned about children being inappropriately diagnosed with bipolar.

"We do not endorse that diagnosis in children," he says.

Brock runs the inpatient service of the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide and says he is aware the diagnosis is being made, both by GPs and psychiatrists.

"We would contend that because of the developmental context we're not able to say categorically that this is an illness that can be applied to children."

He says he is aware of advocates for diagnosing bipolar in children and found it alarming when a US organisation approached the faculty he represents 18 months ago to set up a support group for infants and children with bipolar disorder.

advertisement

Healy says while a child might be hard to handle because they've moved house or school, because they've been bullied at day-care or because their parents aren't getting on it is "easier to locate to the problem in the child".

Brock is similarly concerned.

"We know that children and teenagers frequently have changes in mood. That's part of growing up," he says.

Source: ABC Australia

Last updated: 04/06

Related Information:

• Bipolar Disorder in Children and Adolescents: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Issues
• Bipolar Disorder on Rise Among Children
• Children of Rage and Sorrow — More Children are Battling Mental Illness
• Course of Bipolar Disorder in Youths Described for the First Time
• Bipolar Disorder in Children: How Common Is it?
• About Early-Onset Bipolar Disorder
• How to Help Your Child
• Treatment and Parent’s Role in Treating Your Bipolar Child
• Addressing Educational Needs of Children with Bipolar Disorder
• Living with Bipolar as a Teen: Dealing with School (for teens)
• Mood Swings and Substance Abuse
• Girls with Bipolar Disorder
• Bipolar Patients Show Differences in MRI
• Brain Damage From Bipolar Disorder
• What Causes Bipolar Disorder?
• Bipolar is a Serious Psychiatric Condition
• APA 2004 Mtg. Report: New Research on Biological Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology
• How To Survive Bipolar Disorder
• Family-Focused Therapy Helps Bipolar Patients Cope

back to top ~ bipolar news index ~ send page to a friend