UCLA ’s epilepsy center offers hope to people with drug-resistant seizures

More than 20 new anti-seizure drugs have been introduced in recent decades — a number that means little to people with drug-resistant epilepsy. For them, treatment has not improved.Some people are willing to try medication after medication — coping with side effects and getting no relief from seizures — because they believe, as do their doctors, that maybe the next drug will work. Others have been afraid of procedures that could ease their seizures, or have believed wrongly that surgery is their only other option. Still others don ’t actually have epilepsy at all, but don’t know it. In fact, 40 percent of people with epilepsy — over 1 million Americans — continue to experience seizures despite taking medication.Experts at the UCLA Seizure Disorder  Center at UCLA Health want to change that picture. Their message to people with epilepsy as well as their doctors is simple: Referral to a full-service epilepsy center can help.“So many lives could be improved, if people only knew all of their treatment options,” said Dr. S. Thomas Carmichael, chair of the neurology department at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.Nationally, experts agree that patients should seek other opinions. If an epilepsy patient is not seizure-free after one year of treatment, or after two medications have failed, he or she should seek out an epilepsy specialist or an epilepsy center, the Epilepsy Foundation recommends.Carmichael added that evaluation by a team of diverse epileps...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news