Pakistan Society of Neurology has launched National Guidelines for Management of Epilepsy with family physicians and general practitioners as the target groups to facilitate proper and timely diagnosis coupled with treatment of the condition afflicting no less than two million people in the country.
The ‘guideline’ was launched at the 16th International Neurology Update 2016, a moot held recently in the metropolis and attended by neurologists from different parts of the world, eminent neurologists from United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc were part of the event.
Japanese and Singaporean neurologists offered to train Pakistani neurologists and physicians at their health and research institutes besides offering diagnostic facilities for various nerve and muscle diseases reported among patients from Pakistan.
The 16th International Neurology Update 2016 Coordinator and senior neuro-physician Dr Abdul Maalik shared details of the document with APP on Thursday and said that the guidelines have been prepared to help young doctors and physicians to diagnose epileptic seizures and fits in patients and prescribe inexpensive but effective drugs available in Pakistan to the patients in need.
“These guidelines have been designed to assist primary care physicians in diagnosing epilepsy and providing proper treatment for the same,” he added. He said these guidelines would enable physicians to be in a better position to prescribe first, second and third generation Anti-Epileptic Drugs (AEDs) to patients that are not only available in Pakistan and inexpensive but highly effective in the treatment of epilepsy.
He said that the epilepsy treatment guidelines encompasses respective conditions and requirements for adult epileptics in general as well those that can be cited as women specific and children specific.
Dr Abdul Maalik said, “These guidelines are aimed at minimising inappropriate or inadequate treatment methods, identifying preventable aetiology, making personalised selections for women and children with epilepsy, advice about pregnancy and contraception,”
Replying to a question, he said ‘absence epilepsy, a very common but treatable form of epilepsy could be treated with a cheap drug, which is not locally manufactured and Pakistani pharmaceutical companies need to pay attention towards the issue and start manufacturing the drug “ethosuximide” used to treat absence seizures among children”.
He appreciated neurologist Dr Fauzia Siddiqui, the lead author of the guidelines and her team for the efforts made to help develop the guidelines very much needed in the country.
Dr Abdul Maalik urged the federal as well provincial governments to spend adequate funds on prevention of neurological disorders.
