Antiepileptics

More than 2 million people in the US have some form of epilepsy. Seventy percent of them are adults.

Clonazepam is a medication that belongs to the class of benzodiazepines. It has anticonvulsant, anxiolytic (anxiety-reducing), muscle relaxant, and sedative properties. Clonazepam is commonly prescribed for the treatment of various conditions, including seizures, panic disorder, anxiety, and movement disorders.

Epilepsy is a chronic neurologic disorder that may result from brain injury, developmental malformation, or a genetic abnormality. It is characterized by recurrent seizures caused by sudden, excessive electrical activity in the brain. Seizures are classified as generalized, in which the electrical discharge occurs throughout the brain, and partial onset, wherein the electrical activity is localized (in simple partial-onset seizures, consciousness is maintained; in complex partial, consciousness is altered).

My 10-year-old daughter has just been prescribed Depakote for absence epilepsy. How will this drug affect her quality of life? We are particularly concerned with her ability to learn and continue to be creative/intellegent.

Status epilepticus is a persistent, generalized tonic-clonic seizure that occurs in some 60,000 Americans each year, primarily children but also frequently people over age 60. One third of patients are known epileptics and one third have no history of epilepsy (in half of these, the seizures are a first manifestation of epilepsy).

Carbamazepine is widely used to treat various types of seizures, including partial, generalized tonic-clonic, and mixed seizure patterns. Carbamazepine is also utilized as a mood stabilizer. It is often prescribed for individuals with bipolar disorder to help stabilize mood and prevent episodes of mania and depression.

How many double blind studies have been done on the use of antiepileptics for rapid cyclers? If anxiety is a factor, what other drugs should be used with them? There are now four main anticonvulsant (anti-epileptic) agents that are either established or being actively investigated as mood stabilizers: valproate (Depakote), carbamazepine (Tegretol), gabapentin (Neurontin) and lamotrigine (Lamictal).

Another new antiseizure medication has entered to drug arena, the latest in a spate of new drugs for partial onset epilepsy (see previous articles on Keppra and Trileptal). On March 28, 2000, the FDA approved Zonegran (zonisamide) to be used in addition to other drugs in the treatment of partial seizures in adults with epilepsy. Zonegran has been marketed under the trade name Excegran since 1989 in Japan.

Clobazam is a medication that belongs to the benzodiazepine class. It’s used to treat seizures, specifically in treating epileptic disorders. Benzodiazepines like clobazam affect the central nervous system and enhance the activity of a neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). This, in turn, helps to reduce abnormal electrical activity in the brain, which can contribute to seizures.

The interest in the cognitive side-effects of antiepileptic drug treatment is of relatively recent origin and the first studies are from the 1970s,probably stimulated bythe widening range of possibilities for drug treatment during that period; valproate and carbamazepine were clinically introduced in this same period and many studies compare these drugs with phenytoin (combination of phenytoin). A first paragraph of this chapter reviews the literature in lines of evidence-based medicine, that is, reviewing the empirical data that were published in peer-reviewed journals. Potentially relevant studies were identified through computerized and manual searches of the English-language literature published from January 1970 through December 1994.

More than 2 million people in the US have some form of epilepsy. Seventy percent of them are adults.

The possibility that cognitive impairment may develop as a consequence or aftermath of epilepsy was raised as early as 1885 when Gowers described ‘epileptic dementia’ as an effect of the pathological sequela of seizures. Nonetheless, the topic was not coupled to antiepileptic drug treatment until the 1970s.

Although the psychometric studies generally show a tendency of cognitive impairments in polytherapy compared to monotherapy, this merely suggests a drug interaction effect. As previously mentioned evidence-based confirmation will be extremely difficult due to the methodological problems that occur when studying polytherapy and especially in the light of the many interfering factors, especially the seizure confound.

Epilepsy is a group of disorders of the brain characterized by recurring episodes of convulsive seizures, sensory disturbances, abnormal behaviour, loss of consciousness, or all of these. Topiramate (Topamax) helps to reduce symptoms.