About Mental Illness >> Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness in which a person's mood can swing dramatically from deep depression to intense highs, or "mania." In fact, the disease is often referred to as manic depression. But no matter what it's called, the disease can seriously affect the lives of everyone who encounters it, including the patients, their families and friends.

In the United States, approximately 1 in 100 people will be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And while both men and women are equally likely to develop the disease, it tends be a combination of highs and lows for men, whereas women tend to have more cycles of depression than mania.

Bipolar disorder tends to first appear when people are in their 20s, but some show symptoms of the disease as children or adolescents, and some are diagnosed with the illness much later in life.