Are treatments different among mood disorders?

Just as no two mood disorders are alike, neither are the treatments. HealthMaker Ellen Leibenluft, MD, chief of bipolar spectrum disorders at the National Institute of Mental Health explains more in this video.

Transcript

00:00

If your child has bipolar disorder, you would not want to give them SRIs because that would make them manic, OK.

00:07

So that's an example. You would want to give them the antipsychotics, possibly lithium. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:27

So for example, if you had a child with bipolar disorder on the one hand and then you have a child

00:33

with chronic irritability on the other, the child with chronic irritability it turns out

00:40

is at very high risk for anxiety disorders, as I talked about, both in the future but also in the here and now.

00:47

Well, how do you treat anxiety disorders in kids? You treat it with cognitive behavioral therapy,

00:53

and sometimes you treat it with SRIs, Serotonergic Reuptake Inhibitors, antidepressants, OK, very effective in anxiety.

01:04

If your child has bipolar disorder, you would not want to give them SRIs because that would make them manic, OK.

01:11

So that's an example. You would want to give them the antipsychotics, possibly lithium. So that's an example of how the treatment is definitely

01:20

different and why it's important to differentiate the two. [AUDIO LOGO]