Why Is It So Difficult to Diagnose Bipolar Disorder in Children?
Why Is It So Difficult to Diagnose Bipolar Disorder in Children? Thursday November 30, 2006In the latest edition of The Bipolar Child Newsletter by Janice Papolos and Demitri Papolos, M.D, the authors address the difficulty of diagnosing bipolar disorder in children. Diagnosis in psychiatry is a problem. After all, there are no lab tests in psychiatry that conclusively pinpoint a diagnosis, and there are a host of overlapping symptoms (especially in children’s disorders) Distinguishing between normal behaviors and pathological ones in a young child is even more challenging for a number of reasons: The span of time in a young life is insufficient to establish a course of illness; developmental factors are in full play; and a child’s often nonstop motion, lack of impulse control, difficulty tolerating frustration, and vivid imagination are part of a typical, everyday picture. So How Does a Psychiatrist Make a Diagnosis?”
