A mood stabilizer is a psychiatric medication used to treat mood disorders with intense mood shifts, classically disease presentations on the bipolar disorder spectrum. In bipolar disorder, mood stabilizers are used to treat acute episodes of depression, mania, and hypomania; however, they are also used as prophylaxis against the recurrence of future mood episodes. Mood stabilizers are also used as adjunctive or augmentation agents in major depressive disorder, many of them being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this indication. In addition, mood stabilizers are used to treat aggression, agitation, impulsivity, and mood swings, not only in bipolar disorder but also in other mental health disorders, including personality disorders (an ingrained and maladaptive pattern of behavior, typically manifest by the ...

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