Clinical Characteristics of Early and Late Onset Bipolar Disorder

Kim, Won; Bahk, Won Myong; Lee, Kyoung Uk; Chae, Jeong Ho; Jun, Tae Youn; Kim, Kwang Soo

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Considerable information is available about bipolar disorder in young individuals. However, there is remarkable paucity of information regarding bipolar disorder in the elderly. Some studies suggests a different demographic data, family history, and psychosocial profiles for elderly patients with early and late onset bipolar disorder, but these differencies are remained controversial. So we investigated characteristics of early and late onset bipolar disorder for elderly inpatients. METHODS: Data of 30 inpatients over 50 year-old ages with a diagnosis of bipolar I disorder according to DSM-IV from January 1998 to December 2002 were collected. We divided cases to early onset group and late onset group. The cut-off age were 50 years. Data on demographics, family histories, and other clinical variables were analyzed and compared between early onset group and late onset group. RESULTS: The late onset group had more number of episode and longer intervals between episodes. But two groups had no differencies on other demographics and clinical variables. There is no differency of psychiatric family histories and combined cerebrovascular diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggests that early and late onset bipolar disorder have no considerable differencies on their characteristics and therefore they are not two different subtypes of bipolar disorder. But this study has some limitation of small number of cases and retrospective design. So additional clinical studies about elderly bipolar patients would contribute the understanding of geriatric mood disorder and mental health.