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Treatment Guidelines

Why is charting beneficial for kids with Bipolar?

• Easier to recognize when a specific medication is helping or making things worse. Through careful examination of the charts parents and doctors are able to pick up the first subtle clues of a problem brewing and connect it to starting or discontinue a med and make adjustments as needed.

• Children and teens can begin to fill out their own charts and see their own patterns so they become more able to manage their illness. It can help them to begin to describe their feelings, to see the beginnings of problems, and to quantify feelings and symptoms. Those are all valuable handling difficult situations skills our kids will need as adults managing their own illness.

• Charts graphically depict the cycling over time which can help the doctor with a treatment plan as well as the family planning (not a good idea to take a vacation during a time of year when commonly manic, for example).

• Progress, however minute, can be seen when charts are kept over a longer period of time.

The method is less important than the ease of use and sticking to it long term. Charting provides a gold mine of information and tools to help beat the beast and get our kids lives back. Mood Charting is a skill every family of a Bipolar child needs to know, and every Bipolar child needs to learn for themselves.

Mood Charts