BI-POLAR MENTAL ILLNESS - THE LATEST FROM PSYCHCENTRAL

PSYCHCENTRAL on BIPOLAR DISORDER  full article from Feb 2014

Assessing the Drug Burden of Bipolar Disorder By Rick Nauert PhD  Senior News Editor

 

In a new study, investigators followed 230 patients with bipolar I disorder whose symptoms were severe enough to warrant admission to a Rhode Island psychiatric hospital.

Additionally, many individuals were taking additional medicines for other conditions, such as cardiovascular disease or metabolic disorders. In total, the average patient admitted to a hospital is on six different drugs.

“The study quantifies a difficult outcome for many patients with this difficult-to-treat disorder,” said study lead author Lauren Weinstock, Ph.D.

Weinstock found bipolar patients accrue a high burden of prescriptions each with their own side effects, with often unknown interactions, and with a complexity that can result in not taking the medications as prescribed.

This medication burden also includes high overall cost to patients and the healthcare system.

“Yet for those patients who’ve needed to come to the hospital, these complex combinations of drugs haven’t proven sufficiently effective,” Weinstock said.

The study, published online in the journal Psychiatry Research, also reports the likelihood of a high medication burden was significantly greater for women than men."

 

WHATS NEW ON SCHIZOPHRENIA and BIPOLAR ILLNESS?

SCIENCE DAILY - UPDATES ON SCHIZOPHRENIA and BIPOLAR ILLNESS

Once in a while we wonder what the latest science is saying about these medical conditions that effect the mind, since many homeless are on the street because they're mentally ill with these conditions.

Many things can fall out for a person with a serious medical mental illness.

Parents die leaving adult children to fend for themselves.  Family finances can only go so far.  A person can't cope with the stress of their situation.

Lots of articles at this link.  Here's a little of one of them : "These receptors respond to glutamate, one of the most common nerve-signaling chemicals in the brain, and they are also found on brain circuits that manage dopamine release. Dopamine is a nerve signal associated with reward-seeking, movement and emotions. Deficits in glutamate and dopamine function have both been implicated in schizophrenia but most of the medications that have been developed to treat schizophrenia have targeted dopamine receptors."