Management of patients with epilepsy

Wieslaw Oczkowski, MD, is a professor emeritus in the Department of Medicine at McMaster University and director of the Regional Stroke Network for the Central South Ontario Region.

Could you please summarize the key advice for neurologists treating patients with drug-resistant epilepsy?

The management of patients with epilepsy is extremely complex. It’s not one disorder, it has multiple etiologies. It requires a complex evaluation of the patients themselves.

It also requires a good understanding of the use of the medications, their mechanisms of action, interactions, and so forth. It requires a multidisciplinary team, so the use of an epileptologist plus the community care partners, to fully be able to manage someone with a disorder which can be very refractory. In this way the patient will get the best care and most likely will be seizure free.