The mother of a young man with bipolar depression sent us the link to this article in the Wall Street Journal which gives a pretty balanced update on what we know about diagnosing bipolar depression (as opposed to unipolar depression).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/seeking-better-ways-to-treat-the-lows-of-bipolar-disorder-1436221964
Perhaps in keeping with the overall mission of the newspaper, the discussion is heavily focused on technology, as opposed to a large and evolving literature suggesting that the presence of agitation or “mixed” states in depression is a fairly good predictor of bipolar depression. And it doesn’t mention the somewhat controversial, but still useful, Bipolar Spectrum Questionnaire developed by Ronald Pies and modified by S. Nassir Ghaemi, which is posted on our sister site: Gateway Psychiatric Services.
Still, it’s nice to see intelligent articles on the subject in the press.