The Essential Guide to Lithium Treatment

Diagnosis and classification of mood disorders.- Natural course of mood disorders and its treatment.- History of lithium treatment.- Pharmacology and mechanisms of action.- Maintenance treatment with lithium.- Treatment of mania with lithium.- Treatment of depression with lithium.- Suicide prevention with lithium.- Other clinical indications of lithium including neuroprotective effects and its potential indications.- Lithium in pregnancy and postpartum period.- Practical management of lithium.- Adverse effects and its management.- Other treatments for bipolar disorder and major depression.

Michael Bauer, MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Chair of theDepartment of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Medical Faculty, TechnischeUniversität Dresden, in Germany, where he is also Physician-in-Chief at thePsychiatric Hospital and Outpatient Clinics of the University Hospital CarlGustav Carus. He received his medical degree from Freie Universität BerlinSchool of Medicine and a PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry from FreieUniversität Berlin. He is the editor together with Prof. Paul Grof and ProfBruno-Mueller-Oerlinghausen of the definitive scientific textbook "Lithium inNeuropsychiatry-The Comprehensive Guide" (from 2006), and has authored andcoauthored more than 400 articles published in peer-reviewed journals,including The Lancet, MolecularPsychiatry and The American Journalof Psychiatry, and books in the field of mood disorders. He is President ofthe International Group for the Study of Lithium-Treated Patients (IGSLi),chairs the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry's (WFSBP)Task Force on Treatment Guidelines for Unipolar Depressive Disorders, and isproject coordinator of the National consortium for the German TreatmentGuidelines for Bipolar Disorder, and leads the National Research Network onBipolar Disoder "BipoLife". He is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders and Pharmacopsychiatry and editor of Der Nervenarzt. Michael J. Gitlin, M.D. is Professor ofClinical Psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)School of Medicine. He is currently the Director of the Adult Division in theDepartment of Psychiatry, Medical Director of the Neuropsychiatric BehavioralHealth Services and Director of the Mood Disorders Clinic. From 1980 until2004, he was the Medical Director of the Aftercare Clinic, a research clinic inschizophrenia. He is the author of many scientific articles and book chaptersas well as four books, including: two editions of a solo authoredpsychopharmacology