Study Sheds Light on Safety of Driving With Epilepsy

Research Sheds Gentle on Security of Driving With Epilepsy

SUNDAY, Dec. four, 2016 (HealthDay Information) -- Folks with epilepsy who skilled longer seizures throughout a simulated driving take a look at could face an elevated threat for crashes whereas on the street, a brand new research suggests.

About 75 p.c of individuals with epilepsy use treatment to manage their seizures and are capable of drive. The rest of sufferers usually preserve a journal of seizures, noting how lengthy they final, and docs use that data to find out whether or not sufferers can drive safely, the research authors defined.

The brand new research included 16 folks with epilepsy who used a driving simulator for between one to 10 hours, most for a mean of three to 4 hours. In whole, the sufferers had 20 seizures, seven of which resulted in "crashes."

The longer the seizure, the larger the possibility of a "crash." Seizures lasted a mean of 75 seconds amongst sufferers who crashed and 30 seconds amongst those that did not crash.

The research was to be offered Sunday on the annual assembly of the American Epilepsy Society, in Houston.

"Our objective is to establish if sure varieties of seizures -- coming from a selected a part of the mind or inflicting a selected mind wave sample -- usually tend to result in a crash. That data may then be utilized by docs to objectively decide who can safely drive and who shouldn't," stated research creator Dr. Hal Blumenfeld, director of the Yale Scientific Neuroscience Imaging Heart, in New Haven, Conn.

Blumenthal, who can also be a professor of neurology, neuroscience and neurosurgery at Yale, added that it is not clear why individuals who have longer seizures usually tend to crash.

"It may take much more knowledge to give you a dependable method of predicting which individuals with epilepsy ought to drive and which shouldn't," Blumenfeld stated in a information launch from the epilepsy society.

"We need to unearth extra element, to study if there are folks with epilepsy who're driving who should not be, as properly those that aren't driving who can safely drive," he stated.

-- Robert Preidt

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SOURCE: American Epilepsy Society, information launch, Dec. four, 2016