Toddlers diagnosed with bipolar

[Guest guest]

SSRI-Research@

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:47:17 -0400

[sSRI-Research] Toddlers diagnosed with bipolar

 

 

 

 

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

 

News in Science <http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/default.htm>

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1620249.htm]

lers diagnosed with bipolar

 

Anna Salleh

ABC Science Online

Friday, 21 April 2006

 

Young children are being medicated for an illness that some psychiatrists

say doesn't exist

 

Children as young as two years old are being inappropriately diagnosed and

medicated for bipolar disorder, says a UK psychiatrist. Professor David

Healy of Cardiff University <http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/> told the

Inaugural

Conference on Disease-Mongering <http://www.diseasemongering.org/>

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 <http://www.psych.org/> (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

<http://www.ranzcp.org> ' 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

<http://www.wch.sa.gov.au/> 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.

 

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.

 

For more information on bipolar disorder, including fact sheets and

referrals, see beyondblue <http://www.beyondblue.org.au> , Australia's

national depression initiative.

 

Related Stories

 

Psychiatry manual linked to drug money, News in Science 21 Apr 2006

<http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1620772.htm>

 

© 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation