What are mood stabilizers?
Medications are considered mood stabilizers if they have 2 properties: • they provide relief from acute episodes of mania or depression, or prevent them from occurring; and • they do not worsen depression or mania or lead to increased cycling. No IframesLithium, divalproex and carbamazepine have been shown to meet this definition; the first 2 are the best established and most widely used. Divalproex and carbamazepine were originally developed as anticonvulsants for the control of epilepsy, another brain disorder. Other available medications that are undergoing research as promising mood stabilizers include several new anticonvulsants and the newer “atypical” antipsychotics. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), discussed later, is also considered a mood stabilizing treatment. Lithium (brand names Eskalith, Lithobid, Lithonate) The first known mood stabilizer, lithium, is actually an element rather than a compound (a substance synthesized by a laboratory). Lithium was first found to have beh
