Unraveling the Diagnosis: Differentiating Between ADHD and Bipolar Disorder Transcript

Hi, I'm Julie Carbray, nurse practitioner and clinical professor of psychiatry and nursing at the University of Illinois Chicago, department of psychiatry and college of nursing. 

The best methods to determine whether your patient has ADHD or bipolar disorder are really a good diagnostic history, taking a look at family history, taking a look at symptoms. If a patient has cycling as a component of their mood, that's not typical for ADHD. However, if they have irritability as a significant component, that might be typical of an ADHD diagnosis. So you're really wanting to differentiate predominant symptoms of bipolar disorder, which you should know well by now. You're looking for elevated mood, you're looking for cycling of mood, you're looking for things like grandiosity.

Those don't typically come with ADHD. You're looking at whether you can meet those criteria for bipolar diagnosis. You're also going to look at screening methods both for ADHD and bipolar illness, whether it's children all the way through adulthood, you'll be able to get some screening measures and then getting some collateral information.

Concurrent disorders of ADHD and bipolar disorder are very common, so it could possibly be that they have both. You really want to do a timeline of symptoms and you want to understand what the predominant symptoms are. If there is a comorbidity, that really can exist.

Being very clear about symptoms for both disorders is important and how they manifest in your patient. Come back for more information on helping your patients with ADHD.