Approximately two thirds of epileptic seizures can be successfully treated and controlled by appropriate anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs).
Download our leaflet entitled anti-epileptic drugs to read about the different AEDs that are available.
Unfortunately, most AEDs cause unwanted side-effects, which can lower the quality of a persons life considerably. Side-effects can include weight gain, sleepiness, confusion, unsteadiness, lowered efficacy of the contraceptive pill and harm to an unborn baby.
People with epilepsy can also experience other effects, either as a result of their condition or because of their medication. These include:
Memory loss People who have had many seizures in their lifetime often find that their memory is affected. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is often difficult to treat with medication, and memory loss is usually most apparent in people who have this type of epilepsy.
Click here to read about the work being done by Dr Chris Butler, at the University of Oxford; who was given a grant by Epilepsy Research UK in 2010 to investigate the cause of memory loss in epilepsy and whether it can be prevented.
Depression At least one in every eight people with epilepsy also has depression. Depression contributes to poor quality of life for people with epilepsy, and there is evidence that links depression with poor seizure control. Despite this, epilepsy services at all levels (GPs, hospitals and specialist consultants) rarely detect it. If a good method of identifying depression in epilepsy can be found, more people might benefit from being seizure free in the future.
Other treatments for epilepsy include:
Epilepsy Research UK currently funds research aimed at improving the outcome of surgery in patients with epilepsy:
Research is ongoing to develop new treatments with fewer side-effects. In 2010, Dr Rob Forsyth was awarded a grant for a pilot study into whether carbogen (a mixture of 95% oxygen and 5% carbon dioxide the same percentages as those found in exhaled air) is an effective treatment for non-convusive status epilepticus in children. You can read more about this project here.
Go here to read the rest:
Treatment for epilepsy | Epilepsy Research UK