Side Effect Study of Antipsychotic Medicines to Treat Childhood Bipolar Disorder

Exclusion Criteria

• •Medications: We will exclude children who are on current treatment with
• •* oral steroids,
• •* lithium,
• •* depakote since these medications will have a confounding effect on weight.
• •We will allow children on stimulant medication to participate, because ADHD comorbidity is very high in prepubertal bipolar disorder (unlike adolescent or adult onset bipolar disorder).
• •We are including ADHD children to thus increase generalizability of the study, and it would be inappropriate to withhold stimulant treatment from these children for a six month period.
• •Recruitment will be stratified to make sure there are equal numbers of patients on stimulants in each group.
• •Somatic Conditions: We will exclude children with diabetes (type I or type II), and those with physical disability that would interfere with physical activity (will specifically exclude children whose guardian reports that the child has been medically excused from physical education at their school program because of physical disability) since insulin sensitivity and activity levels are outcome measures being assessed in this protocol.
• •We will exclude youth with mental retardation, by parent report. Cognitive screening will be done with the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI).
• •Youth with an IQ less than 70 will be excluded because they may have difficulty with self report measures.
• •We will exclude children who have a history of treatment of an antipsychotic medication for \>30 days, as explained above.