New Treatments May Hold Hope for Sufferers of Bipolar Disorder

Karen Greenhouse PhD MFT — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 14:33:00 GMT

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It is our mission at the Institute For Couples Counseling to bring you up to the minute news about mental health, as well as strategies to improve your personal and work relationships.

Today's Mind News is about new treatments that may have hope for sufferers of Bipolar Disorder.

BIPOLAR DISORDER SUFFERERS:

Bipolar disorder has long held many mysteries for scientists and researchers. Treating bipolar disorder is difficult because most depression medications do not effectively combat the severe episodes of depression exhibited by sufferers. Episodes of depression in those with the disorder are also more resistant to therapy than those with non-bipolar depression. Because of huge complex nature of huge disorder, effective medications are difficult to develop. The only medication specifically prescribed for treatment of bipolar disorder is lithium, which was developed more than 50 years ago. Now scientists think they may have found new leads from unlikely sources.

The drug scopolamine was discovered by chance as a new candidate for treatment. In a study conducted by Maura Furey and Dr. Wayne Drevets, scopolamine, which is used to prevent motion sickness, was injected into depressed patients to see if memory and attention could be improved. The night after the injections, the patients reported feeling markedly less depressed. The research was narrowed to focus solely on scopolamine's effect on depression. Preliminary results have been encouraging, and Furey is now completing a study testing the effects of scopolamine skin patches.

We will keep you up to date on any new developments for depression.

The Institute For Couples Counseling Team

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New Treatments May Hold Hope for Sufferers of Bipolar Disorder