Because there are not effective treatments for bipolar depression as Dr. Thase points out, disease state management is imperative. Quantification/tracking applications like bStable can help patients work with their clinicians to maintain optimal mental health.

Actually the main problem concerning the studies in bipolar depression is the selection of patients. As we select patients that have different kinds and patterns of mood disorder we will never find effective treatment.

Other problem is to look for phases in this disease. It's very rare to find someone meeting phase criteria in a regular consultance at medical clinics.

A third important issue is that lots of patients experiencing only depressive mood as a symptom and they refer they are depressed for clinicians. If the mental status exam doesn't fit with the complaints you can't say someone is depressed. Lots of studies in this area includes patients in this situation

We will never find effective treatment for this phase of the disease. All the diagnostic criteria should be reformulated in order to separate different kinds of mood disorders and determine which one is responsive to therapy, antidepressants or mood stabilizers.

....does anyone knows what mood stabilizer means? I think we should start at simple points like this..defining terms and criteria