Bipolar Schizophrenia Versus Schizoaffective Disorder
Is bipolar schizophrenia a thing? The answer is yes and no. Bipolar disorder is characterized by extreme shifts in mood, energy level, and thinking, whereas schizophrenia causes a person to lose touch with reality. They are two separate and distinct mental health conditions, and the diagnosis of one typically excludes the other. However, there are rare cases where a person exhibits symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder at the same time. When that happens, however, it is not diagnosed as bipolar schizophrenia, but rather as bipolar schizoaffective disorder. What is schizoaffective disorder? Schizoaffective disorder is an uncommon, chronic, mental health condition that dramatically affects the way a person thinks and copes with his or her day-to-day life. It is characterized by a mix of schizophrenic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thinking, combined with either bipolar mania or depression (schizoaffective disorder bipolar type), or a major depressive disorder (schizoaffective disorder, depressive type). Because the condition is so rare, getting the right diagnosis can be challenging. Schizoaffective disorder is one of the most frequently misdiagnosed psychiatric disorders in clinical practice and is often misidentified as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. How is bipolar schizoaffective disorder diagnosed? There are two steps to diagnosing bipolar schizoaffective disorder. The first one is a medical evaluation to rule out any other physical or neurological condition that might be causing the symptoms. The other focuses on the diagnostic criteria of the disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR), for a person to be diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, he or she needs to meet the following criteria. The person must have an uninterrupted period of illness during which he or she experiences a major manic or depressive episode, in addition to two or more of [...]