Is It Anxiety Depression Or Bipolar Disorder Patient at Doctors Mercy or Doctor at Patients Mercy
Is it anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder? This is the question not easily answered even by an expert on the subject .Not only do their diagnostic features overlap, but also anxiety disorders (Panic Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Phobias) may be comorbid with any of the rest of the two, as can depression (mild, moderate, severe) be co morbid with anxiety disorders, like say Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The similarities and differences between these two conditions, as well as many of the important features of the comorbidity of these disorders, are well understood. Given the substantial overlap between symptoms of BPD and other psychiatric conditions, an accurate cross sectional assessment is inherently difficult to achieve. Over the course of my own psychiatric practice, this has invariably been the finding, as has been described in this article. Anxiety symptoms and syndromes are highly prevalent among patients diagnosed with Bipolar Disorders, affecting approximately half of types I and II Bipolar Disorder patients at some time. Accordingly, anxiety symptoms and syndromes require thoughtful consideration in the comprehensive assessment and treatment of these patients over time. In addition, mood disorders should be considered in assessing patients considered to have a primary anxiety disorder. In addition to the above difficulty, other factors like overcrowded OPDs, counter transference on the part of the psychiatrist, avoidance, hostility on the part of the patient, are other contributing factors that can lead to missing of the correct diagnosis or its associated comorbidities. Why and how this occurs needs to be found out not just for not labeling a wrong diagnosis on the patient, but also for a much better understanding of the disorder, that the patient is suffering from and its pathogenesis. Making the proper diagnosis, thus, not only requires knowledge of these subtle factors, but also the input, in terms of time and patience of both the psychiatrist as well as the patient.