Here is some info I found:
Bipolar Disorder & Manic Depression Diagnosis and Symptoms
Bipolar disorder is one of the many brain diseases that shares symptoms with schizophrenia; this leads to mistaken diagnoses, especially in children. It's important to know that individuals with bipolar disorder, even those that display psychotic symptoms as a feature of their illness, never meet the full diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. Someone with bipolar disorder is not always in either a manic or a depressive phase; he or she may have long periods during which they seem virtually symptom-free (does not have the disordered thinking, delusions, voices, or other symptoms that characterize schizophrenia). Likewise, any psychotic symptoms associated with bipolar disorder should occur within the context of a manic or a depressive state - delusions of grandeur and hallucinations may be either wildly optimistic and grandiose, or completely disastrous and guilt-ridden.
Schizo-affective disorder is a disease that does contain elements of both schizophrenia and bipolar - it can be described as "schizophrenia with a mood component." The major distinguishing difference between schizo-affective and bipolar with psychotic symptoms is that to be diagnosed schizoaffective, an individual must display the symptoms of schizophrenia (i.e. hallucinations, delusions, etc) without accompanying mood symptoms of mania or depression. In a diagnosis of bipolar, an individual may not always be symptomatic, but within an episode schizophrenia-like symptoms are in the context of mania or depression.
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