Title
Understanding bipolar disorder in late life: Clinical and treatment correlates of a sample of elderly outpatients
Date Issued
01 August 2013
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Montes J.M.
Garcia-Lopez A.
Ezquiaga E.
Balanzá-Martínez V.
Sierra P.
Toledo F.
Alcaraz C.
Perez J.
De Dios C.
Hospital Universitario Ramon y Cajal
Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine the demographic, clinical, and treatment correlates of bipolar disorder (BD) in outpatients 65 years or older and to compare patients with BD subtype I (BD-I) versus BD subtype II (BD-II) and patients with early onset (EO; ≤50 years old) versus late onset (LO; >50 years old) of the illness. Sixty-nine consecutive outpatients with BD were included. Diagnosis was delayed for a mean of 14.1 years, significantly longer in patients with EO (18.6 years) than with LO (3.3 years). Mild to moderate depressive symptoms were detected in 29% of the patients. The patients were receiving a mean of 3 different psychotropic medications. Antidepressantswere more frequently prescribed to patients with BD-II than to patients with BD-I (75.80% vs. 48.60%) and to patients with EO (71.7%) than to LO (35.3%). Geriatric BD has similar clinical characteristics with those of younger ages, and these do not seem to greatly differ with subtype or age of onset. Copyright © 2013 Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Start page
674
End page
679
Volume
201
Issue
8
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Geriatría, Gerontología
Psiquiatría
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84881364505
PubMed ID
Source
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
ISSN of the container
00223018
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus