The featured image is the only fun you’ll have with this post.
I was put right off an article with a title I really liked, by the use of the acronym BPD for Bipolar Disorder. As always, my factchecking hackles leapt up and hauled me over to google. I found it listed as BP, BD, BAD and … BPD. So much for my pissy little assumptions. (More about the various uses further down.)
Bipolar Disorder: Managing a Complex Condition Michael R. Page, PharmD, RPh
It’s a good article and I like the pharmaceutical angle a whole lot. Tis enlightening.
Naturally I then vanished down the rabbit hole and learned a whole load more cool stuff along the way. I say ‘cool’ in the full knowledge that I’m a nerd. Also, acronyms are a major part of editing PhD theses, working papers etc* and so I have involuntarily developed an interest anyway.
About.com said this:
Definition: BPD is an acronym widely used in health and mental health literature to reference borderline personality disorder.
BPD also frequently denotes bipolar disorder, which is more frequently seen as BP, and now sometimes as BD.
Another mental illness abbreviated as BPD is Brief Psychotic Disorder.
As you can see, using abbreviations can be tricky in the psychiatric setting. On this site, “BP” means bipolar disorder, and “BPD” means borderline personality disorder.
More bonus lessons learned:
14 medical uses of the acronym BPD, including Bipolar Disorder.
BP appears to be a commonly used one for Bipolar. This PDF lists BD as the acronym of use in the DSM 5.
DSM 5: Bipolar Disorder: No longer included in Mood Disorders but is now a new category called Bipolar and Related Disorders. Mixed Episodes is removed and replaced with a new specifier, “With Mixed Features.”
Wikipedia says that BD means twice a day (from Latin bis in die). It lists BAD (Bipolar Affective Disorder) too. Btw I always double check the collective unconscious of Wikipedia.
One I’d never seen before, BPAD Bipolar Affective Disorder. When I looked further, the most recent respectable source had listed it way back in 2001.
A rapid screening diagnostic mnemonic for Bopolar:
D: Distractibility (low concentration, easily distractible)
I: Insomnia
G: Grandiosity (feelings of greatness, superiority, uniqueness)
F: Flight of ideas (multiple ideas expressed together in his speech, making it barely understandable)
A: increase in goal-directed Activities (continuous search for pleasurable activities: spending money, hypersexuality,
smoking, drinking alcohol, taking drugs,…)
S: pressured Speech (rapid speech, talking too much, almost unstoppably)
T: Thoughtlessness (high risk activities: sex, projects, drugs,…)
Manic Depression(Bipolar Disorder) Symptoms in an Acronym
This one went all audio on my ass and startled me somewhat. It’s from some ‘nursing quizlet flashcards’.
FIND is an acronym that stands for frequency, intensity, number, and duration, and is used to assess behaviors in children.
And then I got bored and stopped.
Zomg you made it all the way down here! *amazed face*
I guess this post is a fairly accurate representation of the way my mind works, although I left out the part where I went to make a sandwich and suddenly thought is lettuce a vegetable? And it is indeed. More specifically, it is a leaf vegetable. You’re welcome.
*I totally said that to let you know that I wasn’t always an unemployed sick asshole.
