Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is often hard to recognize and diagnose, because the symptoms are seen in various other psychological disorders too. But, a primary symptom obvious in bipolar disorder patients is mood and energy fluctuation, which results in disruptive sleeping patterns, lack of concentration and interest loss in activities at various times.

There are many sub-types of the bipolar disorder. These subtypes of bipolar condition are phases of constant change, and a person might remain in one subtype or keep fluctuating between different subtypes.

There are four basic clinical types of bipolar illness. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, IV-TR, lays down diagnostic and categorization criteria for bipolar disorder. These are Bipolar I, Bipola II, Cyclothymia, and Non-specific Bipolar Disorder.

The diagnosis for Bipolar I includes episodes of manic or mixed symptomatic behavior. Although a depressive episode is not compulsory for diagnosis, such depression is common in patients with this bipolar disorder category.

Meanwhile, Bipolar II, which occurs more frequently is usually characterized by at least one episode of hypomania and at least one depression episode.

Cyclothymic Disorder disagnosis needs a lot more symptomatic behavior conditions, such as several hypomaniac incidents, and depression episodes which cannot be fully categorized under Depression (the mental condition). In Cyclothymics, the mental condition is a low-grade cycle, which seems like mood swings to a casual observer, but is in fact an underlying version of the bipolar disorder, which disrupts normal routing for the patient.

As the name explains, Bipolar Disorder Not Otherwise Specified means the disorder is definitely there, but it can’t be classified under any of the earlier mentioned categories. This is because the mood swings, energy fluctuation and depression episodes are present, but not as extensively as it would need to be specifically diagnosed under one type.

The most commonly mistaken diagnosis for cases of bipolar condition is clinical depression. They are usually wrongly diagnosed and people related to the patient like family, friends, need to be inquired for presence of hypo or hyper maniac episodes.