How do you use lithium levels to adjust treatment during mania?  

If someone is getting manic, the mania in itself reduces lithium levels. You need for a period of about 6 weeks maintain a level close to 1 in contrast to a maintenance level of 0.75. I would, of course, use the appropriate antipsychotic to help during this period. If the patient has been Li respons...

On my inpatient service, we really like the Cooper test dose method to start lithium. For reference: Cooper et al., PMID 4699934.This generally speeds up the process of getting to therapeutic effect with a minimum amount of exposure and as efficiently as possible. This surely improves the overall di...