Patients with epilepsy experienced sustained improvement in their health-related quality of life over several years when treated with the antiepileptic drug levetiracetam, according to new research presented by School of Medicine researchers at the 55th American Epilepsy Society annual meeting.
Patients in the study, whose seizures were resistant to standard treatments, saw improvement in seizure worry, emotions, energy, cognition, medication effects, social function, health status and overall quality of life.
Epilepsy is a chronic disorder that affects over 2.3 million Americans or 1 in every 100 people, regardless of race, age or sex. Although epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder globally, many are unaware that it can develop at any time during one's life and can have many different causes.
Joyce A. Cramer, associate research scientist in the Department of Psychiatry, analyzed the results of a trial that included patients with refractory partial-onset seizures. Participants in the study were initially given either levetiracetam or a placebo for 18 weeks. Those who continued on levetiracetam for long-term treatment or crossed from placebo to levetiracetam were followed for approximately four years.
Study findings showed that at 18 weeks, patients treated with levetiracetam had significant improvements in selected health-related quality of life areas, particularly when compared with the placebo group.
These early improvements were sustained long-term in the group treated immediately with levetiracetam. Patients who started on placebo for 18 weeks improved to the same level after crossing to levetiracetam treatment. Cramer says these findings demonstrate that patients achieved improvements in quality of life after starting levetiracetam.
"People with epilepsy tend to have restrictions placed on their lifestyles because of the risk of having a seizure, but the disorder also has an often overlooked significant psychosocial impact on patients, as well," says Cramer. "To be able to treat a patient with an antiepileptic therapy and simultaneously improve their quality of life is a powerful combination that can help us control this disorder."
-- By Karen Peart
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