I post this because of the massive use of antipsychotic medications on children diagnosed as bipolar...
Though medications used to treat schizophrenia and other psychoses are prescribed to treat bipolar disorder in children, Findling says, those drugs have been linked to substantial weight gain, a considerable medical and social drawback for young people that causes many to stop taking them.
To test whether lithium is safe and as effective at treating bipolar disorder for children as it is for adults, Findling and his colleagues performed a randomized, placebo-controlled prospective study -- the gold standard for clinical research -- involving 81 patients seen at nine academic medical centers across the United States. The participants, split roughly equally between sexes, ranged in age from 7 to 17 and had all been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
After undergoing a "washout" period for those already taking ineffective medication for this condition, 53 children started a regimen of lithium at a standard dose, then gradually increased to a maximum tolerated dose over the next eight weeks if mood symptoms weren't controlled. The remaining 28 patients received placebo.
At weekly visits for the first four weeks, and then every other week for the remainder of the study period, patients' symptoms were assessed using a survey called the Young Mania Rating Scale, along with other standard assessment tools for bipolar disorder symptoms and therapies. Patients were also questioned about side effects and given a physical exam, including a weight check.
Results showed that the patients on lithium experienced far more significant improvement in their symptoms over eight weeks compared with those on the placebo. Some 47 percent of those on lithium scored in the range of "very much improved" or "much improved" on the Clinical Global Impressions Scale, a rating system commonly used to assess the efficacy of treatments in patients with mental disorders, compared to 21 percent of those on the placebo.