Handbook of Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorders

This is the first book to provide quantitative assessment of potential benefit (number needed to treat) and risk (number needed to harm) for all approved treatments for bipolar disorder, providing clinicians with information needed to balance benefits and risks in order to render individualized state-of-the-art, evidence-based care. It describes all FDA-approved indications - reviewing efficacy, safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, illness phase - specific dosing, and drug interactions. The book then demonstrates the relevance of this approach to therapeutics by providing: an overview of pharmacotherapy that covers the emergence of evidence-based pharmacotherapy; guidelines to managing acute manic and mixed episodes that include evidence-based assessments; coverage of acute major depressive episodes in bipolar disorders; discussion of the longer-term management of bipolar disorders; a review of the use of mood stabilizers and second-generation antipsychotics, often in combinations; description of important advances in evidence-based adjunctive psychotherapeutic interventions in bipolar depression, and bipolar maintenance treatment.

The manual provides information regarding diagnosis, pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and treatment of patients from special populations - such as children, women, and older adults - and patients with particularly challenging illness courses such as rapid cycling. Comprehensive in scope, yet readily accessible for application to clinical practice, the book includes summary tables, quick-reference lists of clinical pearls, and case studies.