BRD251: Analyzing Bipolar Disorder's Impact on Wellbeing in America

This essay examines bipolar disorder in America, defining it as a mental illness characterized by depressive and manic episodes that significantly affect an individual's wellbeing. It highlights the prevalence of the disorder, affecting 2-7% of the American population, with a higher incidence among adults and a median age of onset at 25. The research delves into the role of voluntary welfare organizations in providing healthcare, financial assistance, and support services to mitigate the challenges posed by bipolar disorder, such as unemployment and poverty. Furthermore, the essay discusses treatment approaches, including mood-stabilizing drugs and therapies, and acknowledges the American government's efforts in establishing welfare programs to address food insecurity and provide essential resources. It concludes by emphasizing the need for improved welfare policies and increased funding to effectively support individuals affected by bipolar disorder in America. Desklib offers students access to this essay and a wealth of other solved assignments and study resources.

WELLBEING

WELLBEING 1
“Bipolar Disorder in America”
Wellbeing states the situation of being comfortable, healthy and happy. It refers to
diverse and interconnected dimensions of physical, mental and social well-being which is
extended beyond the traditional definition of health. Every situation of life states the stage of
wellbeing. Wellbeing is co-related with many dimensions of life in which health is one of the
factors which affects the situation of Wellbeing. Every nation has the responsibility to take
care of the health of people because different diseases raise many problems which affect the
wellbeing of an individual. One of such problems is Bipolar Disorder (Grunze, 2015). Bipolar
disorder is a mental disease that affects the human health and it is one of the health priorities
of the American government. The aim of this paper is to research about Bipolar disorder. In
the beginning, Bipolar disorder will be discussed. After that, the discussion is made on the
Bipolar disorder in America; the next phase of the paper states those voluntary welfare
organisations of America which help the patients. At the end of the paper, steps of the
government of America towards the health of society is discussed.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness which happens due to depression or elevated
mood. Elevated mood is also known as mania in which an individual feels or behave
abnormally, irritable, or sad. There are two types of bipolar disorder which affect the health
of the people. In Bipolar disorder 1, people feel mania for a longer period of time and stay in
the depression period. It is a more severe type of bipolar disorder as compared to the second
type of bipolar disorder. In Bipolar disorder 2, people feel mania or depression for a shorter
period of time. These conditions of human mind are relatively normal. There are many people
who experience “mixed episodes” in which they feel some of the signs and symptoms of both
mania and depression. The symptoms of this disease depend on the mood of the person who
is experiencing. The two periods of bipolar diseases are Depression and Mania. In the phase
of Depression, people feel worthless sometimes which sometimes encourage them for
suicide. During Mania, people feel very happy and make the lots of plan and ideas. In this
period, they may spend more amount of money on those goods which cannot be purchased by
them. At this stage, people did not like eating, sleeping and getting annoyed easily that is
common symptoms of the manic phase. Mania is a positive experience for the people.
It is estimated that 2 to 7% of people in America suffer from bipolar disorder. It has
been seen that adults of America have bipolar disorder especially those who have age 18 or

WELLBEING 2
above 18 (Bipolar lives, 2018). More than 2 million adults of America had bipolar disorder.
With time the no is increasing and has reached to 5.7 million. 2.6% population of older
generation, every year suffers from bipolar disorder in America (Bipolar lives, 2018). It is
observed that the median age of bipolar disorder is 25 years; it begins in childhood and
sometimes it happens in the age of 40s and 50s. Bipolar disorder is a disease which can be
faced by any age group and affects people of all races. It has been seen that more than two-
thirds of people face bipolar disorder in the family because of illness of a relative. If one
parent has bipolar disorder, the risk of this disease to their child is around 15-30% but when
both the parents have bipolar disorder, the risk for the child increases to 50-75% (Dixon, &
Scheurell, 2016). It is observed that Women’s are more affected than men to experience the
rapid cycling. Women have more depressive episodes due to different responsibilities given
to them as compare to men. The result of bipolar disorder means the reduction in expected
life of a person; it is observed that 9.2 years has been reducing from the expected lifespan
because people commit suicide (Kessing, Vradi, McIntyre, & Andersen, 2015). It has been
analysed that 30 % of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide during their lives and 20%
succeeded in America (Bipolar lives, 2018). In order to handle this situation different
organizations and authorities in America had to come forward.
Voluntary welfare organisation provides the welfare services to American; it is
established by building the trust with the companies, societies, and communities. The
government of America runs various welfare organisations which include the most renowned
food stamps and Medicaid programs (MSF, 2018). Transparent Hands Foundation is the first
organisation which takes care of health and wealth of Americans. Voluntary Welfare
organization of America has the duty to help the people by providing healthcare services. The
major problem of bipolar disorder is unemployment, poverty, career and many others. This
organisation provides the services to the people such as donations and charity. The small
amount changes someone’s miserable life and helps in improving the health. The
organisation also provides the medical relief under the welfare schemes.
Lutheran Service in America is a welfare organisation of America which provides the
health care and human services in the country (Edelstein, 2017). This organisation solves the
problem of people with collaboration and shares the best practices and builds trust in people.
The first priority of welfare organisations of America is to take care of the health and wealth
of the society. They solve problems of people and help in decision making which further
helps in decreasing the bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is caused due to stress which can

WELLBEING 3
easily decrease by solving the basic issues of life. These organisations try to decreases the
stress level of people by solving the problem of people. The main objectives of these
organisations are to provide the services which will help people to stay healthy. They are also
involved in providing education, and job to the patients. It also supplies the medicine and
organizes health programs to remove bipolar diseases from the country and maintaining the
health of people. Food insecurity is also a reason of Bipolar disorder in America which holds
the highest rate; the welfare organisations maintains the quality of food stores to fulfil the
requirements of people (Mellor, 2018).
Earlier, sedatives and medications are the treatments of bipolar disorder but
nowadays, mood stabilizing drugs are a treatment for the diseases. Doctors prescribe the
specific drugs to decreases the stress level of people such as lithium, antimanic drugs,
antipsychotic drugs and the combination of both the drugs. These drugs are mood stabilizers
which are used sometimes off-label as a treatment for bipolar disorder (Su, et al., 2004). A
mood stabilizing medication helps in improving the social interactions, mood, and behaviour
of patients. It is a treatment of the Bipolar disorder which states that interactions decreases
the depression of the people. According to the American Psychiatric Association,
carbamazepine, valproate, lithium, lamotrigine, and most atypical antipsychotic medications
are approved by the FDA for treating one phase of bipolar disorder (Transparent Hands,
2018). American Psychiatrists prefer these drugs and according to them, the patient are
needed to modulate the depressed mood by interacting with the others and by staying busy in
the interesting work. Antidepressants are the effective treatment for the patients who are
suffering from the bipolar depression. This drug is not given alone to someone because
sometimes this drug raises the manic episode in some patients. Most doctors of America
avoid antidepressants drug for bipolar depression (WebMD, 2018).
American government establishes many welfare organisations to take care of the
health of people by providing the food and medicines. The government is also organising the
programs to supply the food and medicines, and it also provides the medical services.
Government works with the private welfare organisations to provide more facilities like
education, food, clothes and small amount of money as charity (Grand, & Robinson, 2018).
Government of America supports UNICEF to provide health care, nutrition, and basic
education. American government focuses on the health of people for which the government
made the welfare system. Feeding America Network is the nation’s largest domestic hunger –
relief organisation which is funded by the government and helps in ending hunger.

WELLBEING 4
Government has established different agencies which supply food, medicines without any
charges to the poor people and members to protect the community from the stress. The
facilities provided by government are received by 110 million people in America which is
35% of the population (Vancampfort, et al., 2016).
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that bipolar disorder is a depression
phase which disturbs an individual’s mental health. As per the research, there are more than 2
million adult of America suffering from bipolar disorder. There are many organizations
which are established by the government of America to provide the services to Americans in
order to fight with Bipolar Disorder. Voluntary welfare organisations of America provide
many facilities to reduce bipolar disorder. Stress and lack of interaction cause the depression
which raises the bipolar disorder. Voluntary welfare organisations help to reduce these
problems by providing the funds, foods, education and medical services. American
psychiatrists recommend lithium, antimanic drugs, and antipsychotic drugs which helps
patients in handling the stress level. Most of the doctors recommend that the patient has to
interact with the society so that he can control his emotions. The government has taken many
steps to remove the diseases from society. But it is observed that only 3.5% people receive
the benefit of welfare system which is provided by the government. It is recommended that
the welfare system will succeed when the government will improve its policies of welfare and
increase the welfare budget.

WELLBEING 5
References
Bipolar lives. (2018). Bipolar disorder statistics. Retrieved from: https://www.bipolar-
lives.com/bipolar-disorder-statistics.html
Dixon, J., & Scheurell, R. P. (2016). Social Welfare in Latin America. Routledge.
Edelstein, J. D. (2017). Comparative union democracy: Organization and opposition in
British and American unions. Routledge.
Grunze, H. (2015). Bipolar disorder. In Neurobiology of Brain Disorders (pp. 655-673).
Kessing, L. V., Vradi, E., McIntyre, R. S., & Andersen, P. K. (2015). Causes of decreased
life expectancy over the life span in bipolar disorder. Journal of affective disorders,
180, 142-147.
Grand, J., L., & Robinson, R. (2018). Privatisation and the welfare state. Routledge.
Mellor, H. W. (2018). The role of voluntary organisations in social welfare. Routledge.
MSF (2018). Voluntary Welfare Organisations. Retrieved from:
https://www.msf.gov.sg/policies/Voluntary-Welfare-Organisations/Pages/default.aspx
Su, Y., Ryder, J., Li, B., Wu, X., Fox, N., Solenberg, P., & Ni, B. (2004). Lithium, a common
drug for bipolar disorder treatment, regulates amyloid-β precursor protein processing.
Biochemistry, 43(22), 6899-6908.
Transparent Hands. (2018). List of Top 15 Welfare Organizations in the USA. Retrieved
from: https://www.transparenthands.org/list-of-top-15-welfare-organizations-in-the-
usa/
Vancampfort, D., Correll, C. U., Galling, B., Probst, M., De Hert, M., Ward, P. B., & Stubbs,
B. (2016). Diabetes mellitus in people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major
depressive disorder: a systematic review and large scale meta‐analysis. World
Psychiatry, 15(2), 166-174.
WebMD. (2018). Treatment & prevention. Retrieved from: https://www.webmd.com/bipolar-
disorder/guide/bipolar-disorder-treatment-care