Lithium Treatment for Bipolar Disorder: Side Effects and More | Assignment

Running head: LITHIUM IN MOOD DISORDERS
Lithium in Mood Disorders
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1LITHIUM IN MOOD DISORDERS
Salient information
Bipolar disorder brings an effect on patients’ social and occupational functioning. The
patients tend to behave in such manner that jeopardizes their social relations. Therefore, an
assessment should be performed to identify the alterations resulting from depressive episodes.
It is learnt from reading that nursing diagnosis on social domain includes impaired family
process and social interaction, interrupted parenting and compromised family coping. The
nursing interventions involve keeping these patients in rooms where they should be protected
from self-harm due to violent behaviours. Engaging these patients in support groups often
helps in improving their condition through learning preventive strategies (Baune&Malhi,
2015). Social support groups tend to help these individuals to cope up with social
interruptions. Family interventions provide occasional improvement in understanding and
coping with the disorder. Psychoeducation strategies to families shown promising outcomes
for these patients and help to minimize the risks of relapse and hospitalizations.
In termsof psychological domain of assessment, the stress and coping skills are
critical areas of assessment. The patient develops maniac symptoms due to stress triggers and
negative coping skills such as addiction and aggression lead to deterioration. Therefore
nursing interventions should identify these coping skills in times of stress triggers to develop
better intervention strategies. These patients often tend to cause self-harm and have suicidal
or homicidal tendency. The poorer treatment is often associated with obesity; therefore,
preventing obesity would provide mitigation of morbidity and mortality related to physical
sickness and enhance psychological wellbeing (Calkinet al., 2013). The recommended
treatment for psychological domain in bipolar disorder involves pharmacotherapy with an
integration of psychotherapeutic drugs (Geddes &Miklowitz, 2013).Commonly
recommended psychotherapeutic approaches involve psychoeducation and individual

2LITHIUM IN MOOD DISORDERS
interpersonal therapy. The goals of psychosocial interventions is to identify the risk factors in
bipolar disorder and promote reduction of those factors which cannot be treated through
pharmacotherapy.
Patients with bipolar disorder often experience psychosis; mood stabilizers are
tolerated by these individuals as treatment options. They are given antipsychotics instead of
antidepressants for further mood stabilization.These patients often tend to avoid medication;
therefore monitoring the administration of medication is essential. The combined
administration of mood stabilizers and anti-depressants need to be monitored for drug
interaction s as they can lead to potential side-effects in patients (Givens, 2016). The
antidepressants can lead to potential side-effects such as weight gain, dry mouth, blurry
vision, hypotension, drowsiness. Prior to prescribing antidepressants, a baseline report of
vital signs and symptoms of the patient need to be obtained.Monitoring the effects of
medication involve objective observation of the patients’ treatment response and subjective
reports. Antidepressant alongwith mood stabilizers are recommended in lower dosage to
avoid the occurrence of side-effects.
Importance to do blood levels
Lithium is the prevalent mood stabilizer medication given to bipolar disorder patients.
However, lithium therapy causes side-effects, therefore the lithium levelsin blood is
important to be monitored. To prevent lithium toxicity in patients, it is necessary to regularly
monitor the blood levels of lithium in patients so as to ensure that they remain within the
therapeutic reference level of lithium during initial treatment stages (Oruchet al., 2014). Care
needs to be given in order to avoid any drug interactions while on lithium therapy. It is
necessary to notify the clinical prescriber to before any medication prescription as chances of
drug interactions can lead to severity. The therapeutic blood levels of lithium needs to be