This comprehensive volume is the first to offer guidance to clinicians and researchers treating or studying bipolar disorder in older adults. Growing numbers of elderly people are affected by this serious mental illness. Presenting the most recent information, experts in the fields of bipolar disorder, geriatrics, and mental health services research cover late-life bipolar disorder in four major domains: epidemiology and assessment, treatment, complexity and comorbidity, and specialized care delivery. Revealing the effect of the aging process on the disease, they address diagnosis patterns over the life course, rating scales of assessment, pharmacologic and psychological therapies, adherence to treatment, effects of cultural factors, assessing the quality of care, and legal and ethical issues. An important tool for clinicians, this book will serve as a springboard for further research into this complex disorder. (2008)