Benefits of early intervention in young people with bipolar disorder

Abstract

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a leading cause of medical morbidity across the world. Its onset in the developmentally significant and productive early-life years explains part of the disability associated with this disorder. However, the cognitive, functional and treatment outcomes in persons with BD may be better in the early years of the illness, and these characteristics appear to change over the illness course in a stage-specific manner. A conceptual staging model of the disorder that considers the course of BD as evolving from an asymptomatic at-risk stage to a final stage of treatment refractoriness, through intermediary stages of the prodrome, first affective episode and recurrence, is dis..