Diagnosing and managing
psychotic and mood disorders

Read these newsletters to learn where 4 challenging cases fit within the bipolar spectrum and how experts managed the care of these patients.

Full CME Information and Test

Newsletters include:

Case 1: Treatment-resistant psychosis and schizophrenia
Donald W. Black, MD
In a presentation illustrating care for a patient with treatment-resistant psychosis, Donald Black, MD, discusses the case of a 54-year-old man with presumed chronic schizophrenia who was diagnosed when he was 17, being brought to the emergency room with disorganized thinking, tangential speech, paranoid and sexual delusions, auditory hallucinations, and hostility.

Case 2: Psychosis with bipolar mania
Joseph F. Goldberg, MD
The case of a 20-year-old patient with acute psychosis and bipolar mania is presented by Joseph Goldberg, MD. In the emergency room, the young man claimed al Qaeda was trying to recruit him as an operative. Secret messages, he said, were being sent to him from tree stumps, and that the patterns of recently felled trees held clues to future terrorist attacks.

Case 3: Bipolar depression and anxiety
Stephen F. Pariser, MD
Stephen Pariser, MD, presents a case of bipolar depression with anxiety—a 26-year-old professional woman with rapid onset of lethargy, fatigue, irritability, anxiety, and depression. She had a history of recurrent anxiety and depression in her teen years, hospitalization for depression in her 20s, an acknowledgement of obsessional thinking, and a family history of bipolar illness.

Case 4: Depression and anxiety:
Distinguishing unipolar and bipolar disorders
David J. Muzina, MD
A 20-year-old man is the focus of a case that distinguishes bipolar from unipolar depression, presented by David Muzina, MD, to whom the patient was referred by his primary care physician and psychologist for treatment of mood swings, anxiety, and confusion. His symptoms began rather abruptly 14 months earlier, coinciding with an intense program of weight lifting and supplement use to change his self-described smallness. Profound, persistent sadness and feeling “dead inside” were his chief complaints.