Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City, New York
Mind And Mood Research At Beth Israel Medical Center
— -- Here at the Family Center for Bipolar Disorder, we do research on our new form of treatment that's called family inclusive treatment, or FIT.
This form of treatment is innovative, in that it treats bipolar illness just like any other chronic illness.
And, what we do; we have open communication between the families of the patients with bipolar disorder and patients themselves with regard to the symptoms, and with regard to the medications.
So, we don't isolate the patients from their families; we talk openly as you would do when somebody has Alzheimer's disease or diabetes.
The other thing we do in this treatment, we also from the outset will follow not only the patient, but the family members because up to 30 percent of them get depressed.
And two-thirds report a very hard burden on them, so they need support.
What we're doing here is we're studying how this treatment compares to other, more conventional treatments.
The other things that we do at this center, we also have clinical trials of medications for bipolar disorder. And we also study ways to identify those who are at high-risk of hurting themselves or killing themselves in bipolar illness, and try to find new ways to prevent that from happening.
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