Pediatric bipolar disorder posed a different challenge.
Families living with pediatric bipolar disorder face challenges few others can imagine.
Complex psychiatric conditions like pediatric bipolar disorder require more well-designed, large-scale and long-term studies.
"Once you see what this" — pediatric bipolar disorder — "looks like, you can't mistake it," he told me.
Biederman and Wozniak contend that extreme irritability, including aggression, should compel a clinician to consider a diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, in keeping with D.S.M. criteria.
The debate over pediatric bipolar disorder will likely extend to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The team working on childhood disorders is expected to debate the merits of adding pediatric bipolar as a distinct diagnosis, experts say.
One set of slides in the documents referred to "Key Projects for 2004" and listed a planned trial to compare Risperdal, also known as risperidone, with competitors in managing pediatric bipolar disorder.
Dr. Biederman's work helped to fuel a fortyfold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder and a rapid rise in the use of powerful, risky and expensive antipsychotic medicines in children.
It is most evident in how the committee handled three of the thorniest diagnoses in psychiatry: autism, depression and pediatric bipolar disorder.
"I think the increase shows that the field is maturing when it comes to recognizing pediatric bipolar disorder, but the tremendous controversy reflects the fact that we haven't matured enough," said Dr. John March, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Duke University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
