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How do Alzheimer's drugs help bipolar?
Answered by:
Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease can be mainly divided into two types:
1. Cognitive symptoms, or problems with thought processes including memory, language, and judgment. Two kinds of medications have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease:
2. Behavioral symptoms, which include agitation, aggression, delusions, hallucinations, suspicion, and depression. The medications used to treat these symptoms include antipsychotic, mood stabilizers, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications.
Since the behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are the same symptoms found in patients with bipolar disorder, the same medications (antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications) are used to treat the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Dr. Padder is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is currently medical director of two mental health clinics in Columbia, Maryland, and a consulting psychiatrist at Howard County General Hopsital, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins Medicine. Write to Dr. Padder at tanveerpadder@gmail.com.
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