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Bipolar Disorder Essay

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Bipolar Disorder

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to discuss bipolar disorders in adolescents. This paper will include a discussion on what bipolar disorders are. There will be a presentation of the causes and symptoms of bipolar disorders. There will be a discussion of the medical as well as the therapeutic interventions and this paper will also include the importance of treatment.

WHAT ARE BIPOLAR DISORDERS?

Bipolar disorder is a disease that affects one in every five Americans. Bipolar disorders often called Manic Depression, involve the appearance of two extreme emotional states. Adolescents that suffer from bipolar disorders alternate between manic and depressive episodes. Bipolar disorders are not …show more content…

Among pairs of fraternal twins, who have about half their genes in common, both twins have bipolar disorder in less than fifteen percent cases in which one twin has the disorder. Waltz (2000), states that the degree of genetic influence comes from studies of adopted children with bipolar disorder. These studies show that biological relatives have a higher incidence of bipolar disorder than do people in the general population. Personal or work related stress can trigger a manic episode, but this usually occurs in people with a genetic vulnerability (Burns, 1999). Other factors such as childhood experiences and social conditions seem to have relatively little influence in causing bipolar disorder. One study examined a pair of twins in which only one member of the pair had bipolar disorder. The study found that regardless of whether the parent had bipolar disorder or not, the twins had the same high ten percent rate of bipolar disorder. This observation suggests that risk for bipolar illness comes from genetic influence, not from exposure to a parent’s bipolar illness or from family problems caused by that illness.

Brain Differences

According to Waltz (2000), a deletion on chromosome 22 is probably at least part of the problem, likely leading to structural differences in the developing brain. The brain is the most complex and least understood organ in the body. It is the focal point of

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