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Epilepsy specialist role
Seeing an epilepsy specialist who has high expectations of improved quality of life for their patients is crucial for those with uncontrolled epilepsy, one of the UK's leading epilepsy specialists told Congress.
Just accepting that a patient with refractory epilepsy has ongoing seizures is not good enough, epileptologist John Paul Leach told delegates. 'A patient whose seizures are poorly controlled may not know there are alternative treatments to try unless we tell them,' he said.
'If two or three drugs fail, it is important to realise there is still hope for people with hard-to-control seizures.
'Good seizure control depends on many factors. The patient's commitment to taking the prescribed drugs and confounding factors such as alcohol, drugs and a change in shift pattern at work, are important but so is the physician's knowledge, experience and motivation to achieve a better quality of life for the patient.
'A change in treatment to new drugs has to be better than doing nothing.'
Author: Nicola Swanborough
