Individuals often will only seek treatment during a depressive episode, and their history of hypomania may go undiagnosed. Although hypomania may increase functioning, episodes require treatment as they may indicate increasing instability and can precipitate a depressive episode. Depressive episodes
It is during depressive episodes that BP-II patients often seek help. Symptoms may be syndromal or subsyndromal.Depressive episodes in BP-II can present similarly to those experienced in unipolar depressive disorders. Patients characteristically experience a depressed mood and may describe themselves as feeling sad, gloomy, down in the dumps, hopeless, or for most of the day, nearly every day. In children, this can present with an irritable mood. Most patients report significant fatigue, loss of energy, or tiredness. Patients or their family members may note diminished interest in usual activities such as sex, hobbies, or daily routines. Many patients report a change in appetite along with associated weight change. Sleep disturbances may be present, and can manifest as problems falling or staying asleep, frequent awakenings, excessive sleep, or difficulties getting up in the morning. Around half of depressed patients develop changes in psychomotor activity, described as slowness in thinking, speaking, or movement. Conversely, they may also present with agitation, with inability to sit still or wringing their hands. Changes in posture, speech, facial expression, and grooming can be observed.
Another facet of this illness that is associated with a poorer prognosis is rapid cycling, which denotes the occurrence of four or more major Depressive, Hypomanic, and/or mixed episodes in a 12-month period. Rapid cycling is quite common in those with BP-II, much more so in women than in men (70% vs. 40%), and without treatment leads to added sources of disability and an increased risk of suicide. Women are more prone to rapid cycling between hypomanic episodes and depressive episodes. To improve a patients prognosis, long-term therapy is most favorably recommended for controlling symptoms, maintaining remission and preventing relapses. With treatment, patients have been shown to present a decreased risk of suicide (especially when treated with lithium) and a reduction of frequency and severity of their episodes, which in turn moves them toward a stable life and reduces the time they spend ill. To maintain their state of balance, therapy is often continued indefinitely, as around 50% of the patients who discontinue it relapse quickly and experience either full-blown episodes or sub-syndromal symptoms that bring significant functional impairments. Functioning
The deficits in functioning associated with BP-II stem mostly from the recurrent depression that BP-II patients experience. Depressive symptoms are much more disabling than hypomanic symptoms and are potentially as, or more disabling than mania symptoms. Functional impairment has been shown to be directly linked with increasing percentages of depressive symptoms, and because sub-syndromal symptoms are more common—and frequent—in BP-II, they have been implicated heavily as a major cause of psychosocial disability.