Conditions: Bipolar Disorder
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 15
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Objectives: The investigators propose a first-ever, prospective trial of asenapine in older adults with bipolar disorder (BD) to evaluate effects on mood symptoms, tolerability and functional/general health status. Given the dearth of treatment data on older adults with BD, findings are likely to be of substantial clinical interest, may inform larger future studies and will assist in refining bipolar treatment recommendations.

Hypotheses:

Primary: Asenapine therapy will be associated with reduced bipolar manic and depressive symptoms in older adults with BD.

Secondary: Asenapine therapy will be associated with improved functional and general health status, improved global psychopathology, and good tolerability in older adults with BD.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: 12-weeks of open-label asenapine treatment

Interventions: intervention 1: Asenapine
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Asenapine will be administered open-label in pill form. Asenapine will be initiated at 5 mg twice a day and increased as tolerated to a maximum of 20 mg/day. It is anticipated that maximum stable dosing will be achieved by 4 weeks of treatment, although dosage may be reduced due to tolerability concerns at the discretion of the treating research psychiatrist.

Protocol document: