What is refractory childhood epilepsy?
What is refractory childhood epilepsy?
Most epilepsy specialists agree that refractory epilepsy is epilepsy for which seizures are frequent and severe enough, or the required therapy for them troublesome enough, to seriously interfere with quality of life.
What is the difference between refractory and intractable epilepsy?
These terms essentially mean the same thing. Doctors may call your epilepsy uncontrolled, intractable, refractory or drug resistant if you keep having seizures after trying two or more medications. This includes when the medication reduces seizures but do not prevent them entirely.
What is treatment refractory epilepsy?
VNS Therapy, or vagus nerve stimulation, is a way of controlling seizures in people who do not respond to medications and may not respond to surgery. The vagus nerve sends information from your neck down to the chest and stomach, and then back up again. The vagus nerve then sends information up to the brain.
What percentage of epilepsy is refractory?
About one-third of people with epilepsy will eventually develop refractory epilepsy. This means that medicines don’t work well, or at all, to control the seizures.
What are the five classification of epilepsy?
Some types that you may hear your doctor talk about are atonic, clonic, epileptic spasms, myoclonic, and tonic. Focal non-motor seizures.
What is the ILAE classification of the epilepsies?
ILAE Classification of the Epilepsies (2017) After diagnosis of the seizure type, the next step is diagnosis of epilepsy type, including focal epilepsy, generalized epilepsy, combined generalized, and focal epilepsy, and also an unknown epilepsy group. The third level is that of epilepsy syndrome, where a specific syndromic diagnosis can be made.
Can a person with refractory epilepsy still have seizures?
One chart review study by Smith and colleagues in England found that 13% of patients referred for refractory epilepsy did not have epilepsy. If seizures are not controlled, then a reasonable first question is: “Are the episodes really seizures?”
What are the three levels of ILAE classification?
It presents three levels, starting with seizure type, where it assumes that the patient is having epileptic seizures as defined by the new 2017 ILAE Seizure Classification.
How are seizures classified by the ILAE task force?
The ILAE Task Force thought it best to use all available information to classify a seizure. They considered a pure anatomical classification, as limbic, thalamocortical, cortical, brainstem and other seizures, but decided the scientific basis was still lacking.