Peer Reviewed
Feature Article Psychiatry and psychology
Bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder or both?
Recent articles on:
Personality disorders
Personality disorders
Abstract
Getting the diagnosis of bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder right is important to ensure that patients receive the correct treatment for their condition and not a treatment that could potentially be harmful in the long term.
Key Points
- Bipolar disorder is a recurrent mood disorder with generally good functioning between episodes. Mood stabilisers are the mainstay of treatment for patients with this condition.
- Borderline personality disorder is a long-term disorder characterised by affective instability, with recurrent depressive episodes and chronically poor functioning. The mainstay of treatment for this condition is psychotherapeutic therapies.
- The two conditions can be difficult to distinguish but accurate diagnosis is crucial to the patient receiving the most effective, evidence-based treatment.
- The key to making the correct diagnosis is in careful history taking with attention paid to intermorbid functioning and family history.
- Comorbidity of these conditions can occur and makes diagnosis and the effective delivery of treatment more difficult.
Purchase the PDF version of this article
Already a subscriber? Login here.