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Compare And Contrast Bipolar And Hypomania

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Bipolar disorder is widely heard of across the states, even countries. The country with the highest rate of bipolar disorders is, of course, the lovely United States of America. We also have the highest amount of mental patients, but the lowest rate of treatment compared with other countries throughout the world. There are approximately 5.7 million adults currently struggling with this disorder. It is believed that two to seven percent of the population has it, and about ten million people will develop it. However, about half of that ten million will never be diagnosed or treated properly. Bipolar disorder is the 6th leading cause disability worldwide today, which not only affects the patient, but also those in their lives. A large amount of people seem to already have their opinions and ideas of what bipolar is, except most are not correct. Bipolar is not as simple as it may seem and there is not just one type of bipolar, but rather two. There is Bipolar I and Bipolar II, each containing their own levels of severity and different symptoms. Bipolar II has the phase of hypomania, meanwhile in Bipolar II mania is present. Both bipolarś demonstrate …show more content…

Hypomania differs from the regular manic phase (present in Bipolar I), in the sense that hypomania is less manic than mania, but still higher than the portrayed ¨normal mood¨; hence the word “hypo” (meaning under). Another difference visible amongst the two is while hypomania can occur on its own, mania can not. Mania is only able to occur in correspondence with a bipolar disorder. Perhaps the largest distinction is the level of severity (related to impairments). Hypomania is not quite severe enough for a person to develop dramatic impairments in school functioning or to require hospitalization. In addition, a person going through the hypomanic phase does not experience any psychotic features or occupational

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