About 25%-50% of individuals with bipolar disorder attempt suicide, 15% of them die. Correct therapy is needed to ensure that bipolar individuals can perform ordinary everyday activities. Available therapies include psychotherapy, relaxation, or psychopharmaceuticals. It is important to maintain mood stability by avoiding excessive sadness or anxiety, which may lead to destructive behavior, including self-harm.
As the treatment is long-term, it requires personal commitment – and this is frequently hard to maintain. dr. Agustina regrets the fact that many bipolar individuals stop medication because of various reasons, including feeling so well that they think they no longer need it; concern about side effects; actually feeling adverse side effects like headache or nausea; feeling happier during their hypomanic episode than when in normal condition; their family actually told them to stop medication; or because of cost issues.
“People who suddenly stop cold turkey with their medication have a higher risk of recurrence and/or suicide than those who stop medication gradually. A study of 429 bipolar disorder patients shows that 34% of them miss ≥ 1 dose of their psychotropic medication within 10 days, 20% missed their daily dose at least once, and 2.5% totally missed their medication for 10 days or more,” she sighed.
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The principle of bipolar disorder mitigation is to cure the disease, not the patient. They should be assisted in understanding the factors that trigger their instability, and be supported in their efforts to achieve full recovery instead of minimal improvement; they should be given a medication regimen with good tolerability and maintainability. It must also be noted that a medication requirement during acute episodes differs than from that during maintenance period, but both are still closely related. (est)