SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 -- Dysphoric mania and other mixed mania states of bipolar disorder will become easier to diagnose with better definitions, a researcher said here.
"We don't have a very clean way to capture all the mixed states," said Trisha Suppes, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She presented working definitions and an algorithm for treatment here at the U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress regional extension.
The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) includes a definition for mixed episode, which is one that meets the diagnostic criteria for both a manic episode as well as a major depressive episode nearly every day for at least a full week.
However, it does not include a definition for dysphoric mania or hypomania, Dr. Suppes said. One contemporary definition of "unhappy mania," or "energized depression" as she describes it to patients, is an episode that meets criteria both for manic or hypomanic episode and simultaneous presence of at least three depressive symptoms.
