Abstract

  Epilepsy is a well-known and relatively common condition worldwide and has been described across many civilizations and countries since ancient times. The WHO estimates that about 50-65 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with the majority of these patients in developing nations with limited access to effective treatments [1]. Public awareness of epilepsy is often limited and misconceptions abound, especially in the developing nations and regions where literacy rates remain low; although there is a substantial amount of misinformation in the developed nations as well, in regards to epilepsy, its effects and available treatments.

  Treatments for epilepsy vary from medications to dietary therapies to surgical interventions and the relatively newer field of neuromodulation and these treatments are often used in combination or conjunction to achieve the best results for the patient. While such a diverse variety of treatments are actually available, it is often other factors like awareness, cost, availability and awareness of the condition or its treatments that determine the therapy offered to the patient. It is surprising and unfortunate that, in this day and age, patients with such a well-known condition may not have access or even knowledge of the options available to them.

References

1. Global Burden of Disease. WHO (2016).
2. Kwan and Brodie. “Early Identification of Refractory Epilepsy”. NEJM (2000).
3. Picot MC., et al. “Cost-effectiveness analysis of epilepsy surgery in a controlled cohort of adult patients with intractable partial epilepsy: A 5-year follow-up study”. Epilepsia 57 (2016):1669-1679.
4. IOM report. 2012 – 2015.

Citation

Citation: Arun Swaminathan. "Properly Utilizing the World of Diverse Epilepsy Therapies to Treat a World with Diverse Epilepsy Patients".Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 1.1 (2020): 01-02.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Arun Swaminathan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.