Treatment of Bipolar Disorders in Older Adults: New Review with Merely a Mention of ECT
Out on PubMed, from investigators in Germany, is this review:
Ann Gen Psychiatry. 2021 Sep 21;20(1):45. doi: 10.1186/s12991-021-00367-x.PMID: 34548077
Background: Old age bipolar disorder has been an orphan of psychiatric research for a long time despite the fact that bipolar disorder (BD)-I and II together may affect 0.5-1.0% of the elderly. It is also unclear whether aetiology, course of illness and treatment should differ in patients with a first manifestation in older age and patients suffering from a recurrence of a BD known for decades. This narrative review will summarize the current state of knowledge about the epidemiology, clinical features, and treatment of BD in the elderly.
Methods: We conducted a Medline literature search from 1970 to 2021 using MeSH terms "Bipolar Disorder" × "Aged" or "Geriatric" or "Elderly". Search results were complemented by additional literature retrieved from examining cross references and by hand search in text books. Varying cut-off ages have been applied to differentiate old age from adult age BD. Within old age BD, there is a reasonable agreement of distinct entities, early and late-onset BD. They differ to some extent in clinical symptoms, course of illness, and some co-morbidities. Point prevalence of BD in older adults appears slightly lower than in working-age adults, with polarity of episodes shifting towards depression. Psychopharmacological treatment needs to take into account the special aspects of somatic gerontology and the age-related change of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics. The evidence for commonly used treatments such as lithium, mood-stabilizing antiepileptics, antipsychotics, and antidepressants remains sparse. Preliminary results support a role of ECT as well as psychotherapy and psychosocial interventions in old age BD.
Conclusions: There is an obvious need of further research for all treatment modalities of BD in old age. The focus should be pharmacological and psychosocial approaches, as well as their combination, and the role of physical treatment modalities such as ECT.
Keywords: Anticonvulsants; Antidepressants; Antipsychotics; Bipolar depression; Bipolar disorder; Lithium; Mania; Mixed state; Old age; Older adults.
The pdf is here.
And from the text;
I find it a little bit ridiculous that in a 2021 review of treatments for bipolar disorder in older adults, evidence for ECT is called "preliminary" and "largely absent." Really? Come on! To be fair, these authors also state that evidence for other commonly used treatments is "sparse."
I guess if you consider older patients categorically different from others, you need to reinvent the wheel. I'm not buying it; it is high time to recognize ECT as an important, standard treatment for severe bipolar disorder in all three of its phases, across the age spectrum.
From the broader (non-ECT) perspective, this is a very good review, worth the read for general interest, ~25minutes.
I‘ll have the opportunity to talk about ECT at the hospital of one of the authors in November, so hopefully the next review will be more favorable towards ECT!
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