Tribune News Service
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Disease management
 Correct diagnosis and use of right drug.- Disease education among the primary and secondary level physicians.
- Treatment with
appropriate anti-epilepsy drugs.
- Psychological support for patients from family and friends.
- Early detection and application of surgical procedure in case of the patient is not responding to drugs.
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Chandigarh, December 12
Indiscriminate and wrong use of drugs coupled with lack of expertise and training in treating epilepsy patients by doctors at the primary health care centres is aggravating the condition of patients suffering from the disease, which has a lot of social stigma attached to it.
“A large percentage of epilepsy patients in the country continue to suffer due to wrong choice of drugs by doctors at primary health centres or district hospitals, as they have not been trained to treat epilepsy, even though there is very high prevalence of the disease in India,” said Dr K. Radhakrishnan, Head of Neurology at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum.
Dr Radhakrishnan today delivered a lecture on “Rational choice of anti-epileptic drugs” on the inaugural day of the 52nd annual conference of Neurological Society of India at the PGI, today. “Epilepsy affects every sphere of an individual’s life be it social, personal, educational and wrong diagnosis and treatment affects the quality of patients life” he lamented.
He said as per a study conducted in Kerala more than 60 per cent epilepsy patients were being given inappropriate and wrong combination of drugs. “If this is the plight of patients in Kerala, we can well imagine what others would be going through in other parts of the country, where health care facilities and level of awareness is much higher,” he opined.
“The fact that five out of every 1,000 Indians suffer from epilepsy, necessitates the need to train and educate doctors at the primary and secondary health care centres who treat majority of the patients, who have no access to trained neurologists,” he stressed. He said doctors must have accurate knowledge of therapeutic application of the anti-epilepsy drugs.
He explained that health care delivery in developing countries like India, is mainly governed by availability, acceptability and affordability. Prescribing an expensive drug in India could lead to poor compliance and as such affordability factor must be kept in mind.
“More than the patients it is the doctors who are to be blamed for poor compliance and wrong choice of drugs, as they do not explain to the patients about the disease,”he said. He said patients in India were far more receptive and particular about their drugs than in the West if the problem was explained to them properly. He said doctors must offer all options to patients in the form of latest drugs, which are a little more expensive, though with less side effects.
He said the introduction of five new anti-epilepsy drugs, in addition to better availability of already existing medicines provided physicians and patients with new treatment options. The use of a single drug (monotherapy) for treating epilepsy had been found to be most effective, he added.
