Psyched: Educational Psychiatry Podcast

Welcome to PsychEd, the psychiatry podcast for medical learners, by medical learners. This episode covers the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in ther depressive episodes, and a phenomenon termed "episodes with mixed features", with guest Dr. Ariel Shafro, a staff psychiatrist at Trillium Health Partners.  Bipolar disorder is an illness characterized by manic and depressive episodes; patients in fact spend more time in a depressed state than a manic state. The criteria for diagnosing a bipolar depression is the same as unipolar depression (or major depressive disorder).  When patients present with a depressive episode, it is important to consider bipolar disorder as a possible differential diagnosis. In addition, we discuss certain features that can point to an increased likelihood of bipolarity in a patient presenting with depression: this includes a strong family of bipolar disorder; previous subthreshold mania and cyclothymic features;atypical depression, psychomotor retardation (and/or catatonia), and psycho