Abstract
This is a case report of an 81-year-old man who developed de novo bipolar disorder with ultra-rapid cycling at the age of 80. Mood was self-rated daily over a period of ten weeks; in addition, polysomnographic and motor activity recordings were performed during a drug-free baseline period. Both depressive and hypomanic episodes had an average duration of about 30 hours; the affective cycle was thus independent from the sleep-wake cycle. When mood shifts occurred during nighttime, sleep was different in nights following depression than in nights following hypomania. Positron emission tomography revealed a moderate bilateral frontal hypermetabolism in the hypomanic phase and yielded normal findings for the depressive stage. In contrast to what is usually expected in ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder, this case demonstrates an unusual sleep-unrelated cycle duration in the oldest reported patient so far.
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Received: 29 June 1999 / Accepted: 16 January 2001
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Schreiner, R., Mirisch, S., Vesely, Z. et al. Sleep and sleep-wake cycle in an 81-year-old patient with de novo ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 251, 29–31 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004060170064
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s004060170064