TP HCMEpilepsy patients hospitalized at Military Hospital 175 are ranked second only to strokes, and many cases are misunderstood as mental illnesses.
“Currently, not many people care about or clearly understand epilepsy. There are still many misconceptions about the disease, while the number of people suffering from it is quite large,” said MSc. Hoang Tien Trong Nghia, Head of the Department of Neurology, Hospital. Military Medicine 175, speaking on the sidelines of a conference organized by the hospital in collaboration with the Vietnam Anti-Epileptic Association, with many international experts attending, on April 14.
Up to now, Vietnam still has no statistics on the number of people infected and the incidence of this chronic disease. At the hospital’s Department of Neurology, the number of stroke patients accounts for about 50%, followed by epilepsy accounting for about 20-30%, and the rest are other diseases.
Epilepsy occurs when there are periods of abnormal or excessive brain activity, manifesting with different symptoms. The disease can be caused by genes, metabolic disorders, brain structural abnormalities or occur after brain damage such as traumatic brain injury, sequelae after stroke… According to the latest classification of the Concussion Prevention Federation. Internationally, the disease has 3 main types, including generalized epilepsy, partial epilepsy and unspecified epilepsy.
“When it comes to epilepsy, people often think of seizures, but in reality, depending on the area of the brain affected, the symptoms of epilepsy will be different and very diverse,” the doctor said.
In some cases, doctors can easily recognize it through spasticity and convulsions, but there are also patients who only have attacks that are very difficult to describe and difficult to recognize. In particular, if it occurs in the temporal lobe, patients often have behavioral disorders. On the contrary, many cases of seizures are not necessarily epilepsy, because they are caused by hypoglycemia, nerve infections… Therefore, diagnosing epilepsy is sometimes difficult.
Many patients come to the hospital after a long period of antipsychotic treatment in many places without success, because of confusing symptoms such as screaming, agitation, panic or lethargy as well as other behavioral disorders. , hyperactivity of limbs. Most attacks occur for a short period of time and then return to normal, but repeat in the same way. After examination, performing paraclinical tests, combined with surveys using machines at the Clinical Neurophysiology Unit, the patient was diagnosed with epilepsy and responded well to treatment. Many patients recover and return to their daily work, instead of having to stay home to fight unusual attacks.
Doctor Nghia (right) and colleagues discuss a patient’s condition. Image: Chinh Tran
Currently, medication is still the most commonly used treatment method in the treatment of epilepsy. However, among diagnosed epilepsy patients, about 30% respond poorly to medication, despite using many new types. This is even more difficult when in Vietnam, the number of anti-epileptic drugs is limited.
Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Head of the Department of Neurology, Viet Duc Hospital, said that on this occasion, the Vietnam Anti-Epileptic Association for the first time developed guidelines for diagnosing and treating epilepsy. Currently, there are many international guidelines but they are not completely consistent on diagnosis and treatment, many of which are not consistent with reality in Vietnam. Among them, many expensive drugs are not suitable for Vietnamese people’s income or many drugs are not yet available, and many advanced treatment methods have not been widely deployed in our country.
The Association is increasingly organizing training programs to help doctors, especially at the grassroots level, have the right approach and know how to use EEG to identify and classify epilepsy patients. If the case is severe and cannot be treated, the frontline doctor will refer the patient to specialized centers for timely treatment. In recent years, some centers in Vietnam have made many advances in epilepsy surgery, helping patients who do not respond to medication, i.e. treatment-resistant epilepsy, have a chance to recover and return to normal life. .
Doctor Nghia recommends that people with abnormalities should see a doctor early to be diagnosed early. Good, timely control not only helps the patient return to normal life, avoid potentially life-threatening situations, but also helps prevent the risk of irreversible brain damage.
Epilepsy patients need to adhere to long-term medication use according to doctor’s instructions. Do not arbitrarily stop taking the drug when your condition stabilizes, because in many cases symptoms will reappear when you stop taking the drug. Do not stay up late, do not use alcohol, because these are factors that contribute to triggering seizures.