What Is The Difference Between Pediatric Depression And Pediatric Bipolar Disorder?

Nadine Kaslow, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University School of Medicine

February 28, 2008

Question: What is the difference between pediatric depression and pediatric bipolar disorder?

Answer: In pediatric depression, children have only periods where they're depressed, where they're blue, sad, down, low. Or they have periods where they're pretty normal, they're doing fine in life.

ABC News Photo Illustration

However in pediatric bipolar disorder, children can have those down periods, those depressed periods, the normal periods like I mentioned. But they also have the high periods -- times in their lives where they feel really good, where they feel on the top of the world like they're a really super special person more so than feeling confident in themselves. Their activity level may get way too high, they may engage in behavior that's impulsive. And sometimes they think they're such a special person that they have what we call delusions, grandiose delusions.

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