The Departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Kasturba Hospital, have come up with a comprehensive programme for treatment of epilepsy here.
Addressing presspersons on Wednesday, Sankar Prasad Gorti, Head of the Department of Neurology, and Girish Menon, Head of the Department of Neurosurgery, said that both their departments had developed a comprehensive programme for the evaluation and management of persons with medically refractory epilepsy.
Kasturba Hospital was among the few centres in the country to have such a comprehensive and full-fledged centre. The comprehensive programme is mentored by neurologist and epilepsy specialist K. Radhakrishnan, who is Professor Emeritus at the hospital.
There are only a few centres in the country with established comprehensive programmes for evaluation and management of persons with medically refractory epilepsy.
Treatment options
Epilepsy constituted a major public health problem both in India and abroad. About five out of every 5,000 people suffered from epilepsy. It has been found that 70 to 80 per cent of patients diagnosed with epilepsy got a respite with medicines within two years. The other 20-30 per cent, however continued to have chronic recurrent seizures despite optimal medical treatment with antiepileptic drugs, they said.
The last few years had witnessed advances in the evaluation and treatment of patients with refractory epilepsy and surgery was an option in patients with medically refractory epilepsy. The advantage of the surgical treatment of epilepsy was that the patient would get back productive life and would not have to bear the economic burden of medication, Dr. Gorti said.
Jayakrishnan, neurologist, and Vinod Kumar, neurosurgeon, were present.
