Bipolar disorder, which is also known as manic-depressive illness, is a mental illness involving episodes of serious mania and depression. The person's mood usually swings from overly "high" and irritable to sad and hopeless and then back again, with periods of normal mood in between.

Bipolar disorder typically begins in adolescence or early adulthood and continues throughout life. It is often not recognized as an illness, and people who have it may suffer needlessly for years or even decades.

Effective treatments are available that greatly alleviate the suffering caused by bipolar disorder and can usually prevent its devastating complications. These include marital break-ups, job loss, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicide. (From the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH))

Almost one-third of 6-to-12-year-old children diagnosed with major depression will develop bipolar disorders within a few years, according to a study of 79 depressed children over 2 to 5 years reported in the May 1994 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Most became bipolar before the onset of puberty, and 32% became bipolar at an average age of 11 years. The researchers recommend that those caring for depressed children should be on the lookout for symptoms of manic-depressive illness. They also suggested that, because antidepressants may worsen certain forms of manic illness in adults, prescribing antidepressants for children should be done with care. (From the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI))