The COBAD Syndrome: New Hope for People Suffering from the Inherited Syndrome of Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder with ADHD
Dr. William Niederhut, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, had been practicing psychiatry for almost twenty years when he realized in 2003 that both of his young daughters were suffering from a serious mental illness. His search for an understanding of the problem led to his identification of a hidden, familial syndrome in himself and in many of his adult bipolar patients, which he has called the Childhood-Onset Bipolar Attention Deficit, or COBAD Syndrome. As he began to identify the syndrome in many of his adult patients, he also found that it could be effectively treated, often with dramatic results. After reporting his findings to the American Journal of Psychiatry in March of 2005, he wrote a detailed account of the …
Buy The COBAD Syndrome: New Hope for People Suffering from the Inherited Syndrome of Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder with ADHD at Amazon
I have two young children with bipolar disorder so I was very interested to read about adults who are being treated with a childhood onset form of this illness. The book really drew me in because the writer tells not only about his patients but of his own children who suffer from bp as well. His insight in treating adults with this disorder was very helpful. He highlights the aspect of attentional difficulties with these patients and how it affected their functioning even when their moods were under control. This book gave me much food for thought and helped me identify some symptoms that I had previously overlooked in my own children.
After a psychiatrist colleague of mine first read The COBAD Syndrome in 2005, he told me that he had begun to see the features of the syndrome “everywhere” in his adult practice. Academic child psychiatrists had begun to describe the characteristics of bipolar children during the past decade, but their research findings had not been applied to the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar adults with early-onset mood disorders. In The COBAD Syndrome, Dr. Niederhut has presented a comprehensive case series of bipolar adults with childhood-onset mood problems who also exhibit the characteristic features of children with bipolar disorders, including ADHD and anxiety disorders.
He reviews a complex array of technical, controlled research data on the subject of early-onset bipolar disorders and ADHD, but does so in a way that is straightforward and accessible. In an era when psychiatric journals and websites are cluttered with industry-sponsored publications that often make simple matters appear technical and complex, Dr. Niederhut has succeeded in writing a scholarly book that makes complex, technical matters appear relatively simple and jargon-free.
Since the original publication of The COBAD Syndrome, a number of research articles have appeared which support Dr. Niederhut’s central findings about adults with childhood-onset bipolar disorders and ADHD. There are, however, no published, controlled studies to date about optimal treatment of the COBAD syndrome in adults. Dr. Niederhut does discuss his own empirical approach to treating the syndrome in adults, and his observations are potentially important in this emerging area of adult psychiatry, particularly since the most reputable books about the treatment of bipolar adults written to date scarcely mention ADHD and its implications for treatment and prognosis.
This is by far the best book that I have read on the subject of adults with bipolar type mood problems and ADHD, written for both mental health professionals and for the general public. The author is the first person I know of who has tried to apply the new research findings on childhood-onset bipolar disorders to the diagnosis and treatment of adults with chronic depression and irritability. He is an adult psychiatrist from Harvard Medical School who began to study the child research data of the past several years after his daughters were diagnosed with bipolar disorders at age five. He then realized that the features of childhood-onset bipolar disorder–including commonly co-occurring ADHD–could be readily identified in himself, and in many of his adult patients. The last part of the book describes his experiences in successfully treating the adult form of the syndrome, and his efforts to bring his findings to the attention of the psychiatric establishment. He is critical of the enmeshment of modern academic psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies, and of the research process that he describes as “finding new drugs for old paradigms.” The book also presents an interesting history of paradigm shifts in American psychiatry, and of the enduring resistance of the psychiatric establishment to new diagnostic and treatment paradigms. Since the publication of The COBAD Syndrome, several major research articles have now appeared which support Dr. Niederhut’s central findings, including his estimation that at least one per cent of all adults suffer from the COBAD syndrome.