The psychoeducation effects are not immediate, but psychoeducation benefits for patients with bipolar disorder. Two recently published studies in which patients undergoing this therapy were 66% less than manic episodes and 75% fewer episodes of depression compared with those patients not receiving an educational program, evidenced.
Two studies were published in the latest edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry conclude that psychoeducational strategies developed within six months will get benefits that last beyond five years. An analysis of cost effectiveness, also shows that consumption of medical resources is much lower in the groups subjected to this therapy than in those who did not resort to it from the start.
Cerebellar Dysfunction
A number of researchers involving the cerebellum in nonmotor psychological processes and psychiatric disorders in the rate of bipolar disorder. Although recent evidence on the lesions in the cerebellum trigger bipolar symptoms, few scholars have examined to date directly cerebellar function in patients with bipolar disorder. Scientists from Indiana University in the U.S., made using a procedure delayed eye blink conditioning to examine the functional integrity of the cerebellum in 28 patients with bipolar disorder and 28 healthy controls matched by age.
The bipolar group analysis indicated the acquisition of a conditioned response compared with controls. However, when the bipolar group was categorized according to mood (mixed, manic or euthymic, mood within the range of “normal” -), individuals examined during mixed episodes showed a significant decline, getting worse than the other groups in the acquisition and in time of conditioned responses. These results suggest that cerebellar dysfunction may be associated with mood and the course of bipolar illness.
Bipolar disorder is one of the ten leading causes of disability worldwide, according to World Health Organization (WHO). Eduard Vieta, a psychiatrist at the Hospital has taken part in the above studies, said that this disorder is marked by sudden changes of mood, thought and behavior. “Although there is effective drug therapies, they only act on the symptoms, whereas functional recovery of the patient requires other intervention.”
As a result, experts suggest the use of psychoeducation as a prophylactic strategy to prevent relapses in bipolar patients. “Patients learn, among other things, the importance of taking medication, and how to identify symptoms of a relapse in time.” Published studies, explains Vieta, have been carried out within the framework of the Bipolar Disorders Clinic of Barcelona, and in them it is recorded that, thanks to psychoeducation, “in the five years of follow up, patients come to save up to a year of symptoms, making it also reduces the number of hospitalizations and duration of such income.”
