An estimated 6-10 million people in India live with active epilepsy (Seizure) but a large magnitude of treatment gap, ranging from about 22 per cent in the urban middle class population and more so in villages, about 90 per cent haunts the patients.
“This is because of a string of reasons such as inadequate access to or awareness of anti-epilepsy medications, poverty, stigma/ cultural beliefs associated with epilepsy, insufficient health infrastructure, shortage of professionals trained in epileptology, inequitable distributions of available resources in rural areas and high cost of treatment,” experts pointed out on the occasion of the World Epilepsy Day being marked on every second Monday of February.
Dr RK Dhamija, HOD of the Neurology at Delhi-based premier hospital Dr Lady Hardinge Medical College said that, “Seizures can be controlled. An estimated 25% of epilepsy cases are preventable.
Up to 70 per cent of people living with the condition could become seizure free with appropriate use of antiseizure medicines. Low-cost treatment is available.”He called for urgent strengthening of the healthcare in the rural areas which has higher rates of epilepsy cases with huge gap in treatment. “Epilepsy can result in significant injury as well as death, if left untreated. Also, status epilepticus (SE) can be a potentially lethal situation,” added Dr Dhamija.
Dr Nilesh Kurwale, Epilepsy Surgeon, Coordinator for Bajaj Allianz Centre for Epilepsy, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Pune was of the opinion that if treatment with anti-epileptic medication fails to provide adequate seizure relief, an individual may be considered for a surgical work up. “There is a large amount of data to suggest that some epilepsy syndromes may be especially amenable to high rates of seizure freedom through a surgical procedure; temporal lobe epilepsy, being the most common candidate,” he said, according to a report.
However, it is the stigma which is more fatal than the epilepsy itself. “The stigma of the disease can discourage people from seeking treatment for symptoms, so as to avoid becoming identified with the disease,” said the WHO.