Study specific aims are:
* to establish a recruitment, referral, and collaborative network for elderly bipolar patients, in collaboration with the NIMH funded STEP-BD
* to establish an outpatient treatment clinic at the Bellefield Towers site of the NIMH funded Intervention Research Center for Late Life Mood Disorders
* to implement standardized care pathways compatible with STEP-BD treatment algorithms for mood stabilizing pharmacotherapy.
* to document short- and long-term treatment response with respect to affective symptoms, sleep, general life functioning, cognition, treatment-emergent side effects
* to establish the clinical infrastructure necessary for randomized controlled clinical trials and for clinical research training in bipolar mood disorders of late-life.
