Michael Burke
speaker
505 appearances
4 recordings
4 series
first heard Aug 2011
last heard 7 Jul
Michael Burke’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And often it's only after the passage of time that the presence of manic episodes becomes clear at which time you can make a diagnosis.
Absolutely, and it's also clouded by the fact that most people have depression before mania.
So they initially look like they're suffering from depression, but it's only after they've had an episode of mania that it becomes clear that the disorder is not depression, it's actually bipolar disorder.
I think it is a useful measure.
It's not the only measure, but for these kind of nationwide studies, it's a pretty good proxy of illness.
So it certainly would be a measure of more severe episodes of illness, but it absolutely wouldn't reflect milder episodes of illness, which wouldn't get one into hospital.
Absolutely.
And the good news is that lithium probably still remains the best treatment that we have for bipolar disorder.
The bad news is that it's still the best treatment we have for bipolar disorder.
Because it's not perfect for everybody and it's not a medication without risks.
We definitely and quite urgently need newer and better treatments for psychiatric disorders, but lithium still remains the benchmark treatment.
Correct.
And it's clear that antipsychotics are useful for a number of people with bipolar disorder, particularly so for mania, but a number of these medications do help for depression as well.
In terms of the anticonvulsants, they clearly are effective.
Valproate is useful as a mood stabilizer and Lamotrigine, which is another anti-epileptic drug, is particularly useful for depression and I think particularly useful for bipolar 2 disorder.
One always is influenced by these aggregate data, which suggests, as this study does, that lithium is the best way to go.
But a good clinician would always look at a variety of other clinical factors, and many of the symptoms or patterns of illness that a person would present would suggest to an astute clinician that one or another of these agents may be preferable for an individual.
I believe that it's essential for any consumer to have an informed view of the treatments available and have a role in choosing because many of these choices are in equipoise and one could rationally choose one or another different treatment at any stage of the illness.
That is correct.
And that is one of the real risks.
Showing 341–360 of 505 · page 18 of 26
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