Treatment of Psychiatric Symptoms Among Offspring of Parents With Bipolar Disorder

Purpose of review Bipolar disorder is highly familial and has a protracted and diagnostically confusing prodrome. This review critically evaluates recently published literature relevant to the treatment of psychiatric symptoms in high-risk offspring of parents with bipolar disorder. Recent findings Non-pharmacological treatment options including psychotherapy, resilience promotion through good sleep, diet, and exercise hygiene, and omega-3 fatty acid supplementation are important first-line interventions for high-risk offspring. There has been some success in treating this population with open-label trials with mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics; however, these results have not been replicated in randomized controlled trails. Summary Despite some progress in early identification of symptoms in offspring of parents with bipolar disorder, there is scarce evidence supporting the treatment of these high-risk youth to prevent psychiatric symptoms from progressing to threshold bipolar or other psychiatric disorders. There is a need for prospective and randomized trials and research that identifies reliable biomarkers to individualize treatments for these youth. © 2017, Springer International Publishing AG.