Are children with epilepsy more susceptible to bipolar disorder?
Dunn: That’s a hard area, because we are beginning to rethink what bipolar disorder in children really is. We used to think that bipolar disorder was rare in people with epilepsy. It probably is, though we may have missed some cases. We should think about bipolar disorder when there is a family history of bipolar disorder or when the child has major problems with sleep. The child with bipolar disorder will have periods when he or she seems to need very little sleep, is able to stay awake and is not tired during the daytime. We think about bipolar disorder when children develop unusually grandiose ideas. This can be hard to separate from normal childhood fantasies. The 4-year-old that says she will be either president or a fireman is probably normal. But the 16-year-old that is failing in school and says he plans to go to Harvard is getting grandiose. Another sign of bipolar disorder is early emergence of sexual acting out, more so than that seen in the average child of the same age. We
