Many people are affected by Bipolar Disorder (BD), a real, major medical and social burden. We may tease our peers, friends, or family about the disorder claiming they MUST have some form of it as they change moods so quickly. This is actually believed to be brought on by some physiological problem that has yet to be agreed upon. Doctors and scientists characterize the disorder by repeated periods of mania and depression or hypomania and depression. Victims of BD are heavily burdened as they are subject to deep depression without any real cause and even the opposite; they can be extremely happy without cause. Fortunately, there are treatments that have been used for decades such as lithium salts that are able to stabilize a person’s depression and mania symptoms. The problem is that scientists do not have a complete understanding of what causes the disease or how treatments that are available actually work to subdue the mood swings of BD patients. Should we put more money and efforts into treating this disorder or focus on diseases that are life-threatening such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease?
BD is a disorder that affects the life of its victim severely when left untreated. These people will experience mania symptoms such as feeling jumpy or wired, talking fast and incoherently, being easily distracted, sleeping little, being restless, etc. Those in the depressive state will experience feelings of worry and emptiness, feeling tired or slowed down, thoughts of suicide, etc. Adding to this the victims will switch between these two states sometimes often or they sometimes can remain in one state for a year or longer. This causes huge social problems. Those suffering from BD will have trouble maintaining relationships with friends and family and developing new ones. Their jobs will also most likely be affected, differently in the separate states of mania and depression. Despite all of these negative aspects of the disorder, in most cases it has been shown to be treatable. If patients stick to their polypharmaceutical regimen they are able to function normally and live average lives. If they are able to live normal lives with treatment then why are we still researching the pathology of the disorder? Why should we not focus on more pertinent diseases that are more life-threatening?
Diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s are thoroughly researched with their pathologies being partly understood and scientists are well on their way to a complete understanding of specific, central aspects. This is only half the battle. As research progresses and as scientists gain more knowledge, more is understood about how to either slow the degeneration of the disease or treat its symptoms. Even better, we are always progressing to a hopeful cure for each of these diseases. Each of these lead to eventual deaths because of their symptoms, malfunctions of neurological pathways, and accumulation of unwanted masses in the brain. Should we focus on treating a disease such as BD when there are much worse diseases still in need of complete understanding? Many make the argument that many of the patients of these deadly diseases are no longer able to greatly contribute to society anyways so we should put our time and money into disorders like BD to increase productivity of these younger members of society. Either way, the whole argument is heavy in ethics and morals.
In my opinion, because we already have a working treatment, we should throw Bipolar Disorder on the back burner while we focus on diseases that are taking lives. If more money and efforts are taken and added to the research for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and other diseases like them we can hopefully come to a conclusion more quickly. From this we can create better treatments; a cure wouldn’t be unwelcomed either.
Is Bipolar Disorder important? Is it even a real disease?
