Very Early Onset Bipolar Disorder and Aripiprazole Treatment: A Case Report

Abstract

Childhood and adolescence onset bipolar disorder causes serious interpersonal, familial, and academic disturbances. Early onset can seriously effects the quality of life of the patient and his/her family. Lifelong functionality is worse than adult onset. Diagnosis of early onset disorder could take longer time period and there is disagreement about the treatment in literature. Consistent evidence have been found, favouring the use of secondgeneration antipsychotics like risperidone, aripiprazole and ketiapine for the treatment of early onset bipolar disorder. Aripiprazole is a prototype of dopamine-serotonine system stabilisers and it has a different receptor profile. Because of this receptor profile, side effects and disagreement about treatment is rare. This paper aims to get attention that aripiprazole is usable for early onset bipolar disorder treatment.