Background: Patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) are especially prone to having antiseizure medications (ASMs) withdrawal seizures (WS).
Objectives: To clarify whether WS in JME patients are caused by a high tendency of non-adherence from seizure-free patients or by a constitutive increased sensitivity to drug withdrawal.
Methods: Epilepsy patients followed in a tertiary epilepsy clinic between 2010 and 2013 were included in the study. WS prevalence was compared between drug-responsive and drug-resistant JME patients and patients with other types of epilepsy.
Results: The study included 23 JME patients (16 drug-responsive and 7 drug-resistant) and 138 patients with other epilepsies (74 drug-responsive and 64 drug-resistant). JME patients were younger and included more women than non-JME patients. Significantly more WS were seen in JME than in non-JME patients (P = 0.01) and in the drug-resistant fraction of JME patients in comparison to drug-resistant non-JME patients (P = 0.02). On logistic regression, the type of epilepsy, but not the patient's sex, was found to significantly predict WS. No significant difference was found in the prevalence of WS between drug-responsive and drug-resistant JME patients. The main ASM discontinued in JME was valproic acid (VPA), especially in women.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest a higher sensitivity of JME patients to withdrawal of medications. It is important to educate JME patients about treatment adherence and to explain to their physicians how to carefully reduce or replace ASMs to mitigate the morbidity and mortality related to ASM withdrawal.
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Biomedicines
December 2024
Neurology Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Grigore T. Popa", 16 Universitatii Street, 700115 Iasi, Romania.
Recent studies have described unique aspects of default mode network connectivity in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE). A complete background in this field could be gained by combining this research with spectral analysis. An important objective of this study was to compare linear connectivity and power spectral densities across different activity bands of patients with juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE), juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), generalized tonic-clonic seizures alone (EGTCSA), and drug-resistant IGE (DR-IGE) with healthy, age-matched controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Ethics
January 2025
Centre for the Study of Professions (SPS), Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
When should doctors nudge their patients towards the treatments they think are best? If the nudge is compatible with the patient giving informed consent, then the nudge could be permissible. To be compatible with informed consent, the nudge must, at minimum: (1) not make the patient's understanding worse and (2) not make it hard for the patient to resist consenting. Arguably, many nudges will meet these criteria.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Ethics
December 2024
Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Following years of debate over the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), public health bodies in the UK and beyond have determined that no psychotherapy is clinically proven for this patient group. In the field of ME/CFS and the wider arena of 'medically unexplained symptoms' (MUS), patient survey data and qualitative research capturing patient experiences and psychotherapist attitudes suggest that therapeutic practice may sometimes fall short of required ethical standards. This raises questions about how psychotherapists can safely support, as opposed to treat, people with these debilitating conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEpilepsia Open
December 2024
Epilepsy Center, Neurological Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Generalized epilepsy is classically thought of as a disease of the young and adolescent, with rarely reported cases among older adults. We aimed to analyze management and outcomes in a population sparsely described in the literature through a retrospective single-center cohort design. After excluding individuals without follow-up, we identified 151 people ≥50 years at the time of electrographically confirmed generalized epilepsy.
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