Seizure News and Research

Latest Seizure News and Research

Johns Hopkins devises new seizure detection software

Epilepsy affects 50 million people worldwide, but in a third of these cases, medication cannot keep seizures from occurring. One solution is to shoot a short pulse of electricity to the brain to stamp out the seizure just as it begins to erupt. But brain implants designed to do this have run into a stubborn problem: too many false alarms, triggering unneeded treatment. To solve this, Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers have devised new seizure detection software that, in early testing, significantly cuts the number of unneeded pulses of current that an epilepsy patient would receive.

4 Apr 2012

IOM releases new report on public health dimensions of epilepsies

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) on March 30th released its new report on the public health dimensions of the epilepsies, the first authoritative independent appraisal of epilepsy and its management in the United States.

3 Apr 2012

Vaccines for measles may not increase risk of febrile seizures in 4-6 year olds

Vaccines for measles were not associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures among 4-6 year olds during the six weeks after vaccination, according to a study by the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center that appears in the current issue of Pediatrics.

2 Apr 2012

Epilepsy community welcomes IOM's new landmark study report

Responding to today's release of the Institute of Medicine 's (IOM) new report on the public health dimensions of the epilepsies, a cooperative group of professional and consumer organizations with special interest in epilepsy has issued the following joint statement.

31 Mar 2012

New report highlights numerous gaps in knowledge and management of epilepsy

A new report from the Institute of Medicine highlights numerous gaps in the knowledge and management of epilepsy and recommends actions for improving the lives of those with epilepsy and their families and promoting better understanding of the disorder.

31 Mar 2012

Unapproved, misbranded drug products seized in Missouri

Dara Corrigan, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and David M. Ketchmark, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that U.S. Marshals have seized drugs being held by Notions-n-Things Distribution of Bogard, Mo. Yesterday's seizure follows a civil forfeiture complaint that was filed in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo.

30 Mar 2012

CNN examines nodding disease among children in Northern Uganda

CNN examines nodding disease, a seizure disorder that has affected at least 3,000 children in Northern Uganda, as well as children in Liberia, Sudan, and Tanzania.

21 Mar 2012

Electroconvulsive therapy and how it works in severe depression: Study

Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, has been used in severely and persistently depressed patients from their disabling mood state for more than seven decades. Researchers have searched for the reason why this technique sometimes works in these patients.

20 Mar 2012

$Enrollment commences in MORE Registry for DBS in patients with refractory epilepsy$

Enrollment commences in MORE Registry for DBS in patients with refractory epilepsy

Medtronic, Inc. today announced that a patient from Kempenhaeghe-Heeze (The Netherlands) is the first patient to be enrolled into the MORE (MedtrOnic Registry for Epilepsy) Registry which is designed to look at the long-term efficacy, quality of life impact and safety of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in patients with refractory epilepsy.

From Medtronic 17 Mar 2012

FDA denies AstraZeneca Citizen Petitions on SEROQUEL labeling

AstraZeneca today announced that on March 7, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration denied Citizen Petitions requesting that the FDA withhold finally approving any generic quetiapine product with labeling that omits certain hyperglycemia warning language that the FDA required AstraZeneca to include in the labeling for SEROQUEL (quetiapine fumarate) tablets and SEROQUEL XR (quetiapine fumarate) extended-release tablets.

12 Mar 2012

FDA approves Teva's ProAir HFA with dose counter for asthma, COPD and EIB

Teva Respiratory announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ProAir HFA with a dose counter for use in patients 4 years of age and older for the treatment or prevention of bronchospasm with reversible obstructive airway disease and for the prevention of exercise-induced bronchospasm.

8 Mar 2012

Surgical intervention can be life-restoring for people with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy

While the thought of any type of surgery can be disconcerting, the thought of brain surgery can be downright frightening. But for people with a particular form of epilepsy, surgical intervention can literally be life-restoring.

8 Mar 2012

AMTR soon after failure of AEDs may reduce risk of seizures in epilepsy patients

Patients with epilepsy who underwent brain surgery soon after failing to respond to drug treatment, but who also continued to receive drug therapy, had a lower risk of seizures during the 2nd year of follow-up compared to patients who received drug treatment alone, according to a study in the March 7 issue of JAMA.

7 Mar 2012

NeuroVista technology shows promise in detecting and predicting seizures

Mayo Clinic and partners from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine and College of Pharmacy, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and NeuroVista Corporation have been awarded $7.5 million grant (U01) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

7 Mar 2012

Yoga may be effective in treating patients with stress-related psychological and medical conditions

An article by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), New York Medical College (NYMC), and the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (CCPS) reviews evidence that yoga may be effective in treating patients with stress-related psychological and medical conditions such as depression, anxiety, high blood pressure and cardiac disease.

7 Mar 2012

SK Biopharmaceuticals' YKP3089 receives Korea Drug Development Fund

South Korean pharmaceutical company SK Biopharmaceuticals announced that the lead drug, YKP3089, from its drug development program for the treatment of refractory epilepsy, has been awarded funding from the Korea Drug Development Fund to support clinical development for the next three years.

3 Mar 2012

Early surgical intervention stops seizures and improves quality of life

3 Mar 2012

NexGen receives U.S. patent allowance for novel pathogenesis based seizure treatment

NexGen Biomedical, Inc.'s Founder has received a Notice of Allowance from the US Patent Office for a novel treatment method for seizures.

2 Mar 2012

Perception of epilepsy is not faring well in social media

A revealing study published in Epilepsy & Behavior provides evidence that the perception of epilepsy is not faring well in social media. Kate McNeil and colleagues from Dalhousie University in Canada analyzed data collected from Twitter to provide a snapshot of how epilepsy is portrayed within the twitter community.

1 Mar 2012

CU professor to interview epilepsy sufferers and their families in depth

Sara Shostak, assistant professor in the department of sociology, along with principal investigator Ruth Ottman, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, and other collaborators were recently awarded a $2 million grant from The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to learn more about these questions.

29 Feb 2012