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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
While severity of manic episodes can be successfully reduced, repeated recurrences are common with ~40% of patients meeting criteria for rapid cycling after aggressive treatment. Manic episodes present much earlier in children of bipolars and due to unique presentation physicians often mistakenly diagnose such children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Differential symptoms include suicidal thoughts, grandiosity, hallucinations, and depressive withdrawal. Such children may require the usual combination treatment with a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic, with the addition of a stimulant as well. Treatment of adults and children often includes second-generation antipsychotics, which have increasingly shown efficacy both as monotherapy and adjunctive treatments of acute mania. Most recently, some anticonvulsants have demonstrated acute antimanic properties as well and more studies of their role in bipolar disorder are underway.