If you have epilepsy and you are not taking your medications properly then beware. A recent study says that the epilepsy patients who do not regularly take their seizure medications are three times more likely to die from the disease than the ones who regularly take medicines.
According to the study the ones failing to take their medicines more than 20 percent in the time period of three months of the time were at greater risks of dying. Not only this, but there are more troubles in store if a proper routine of taking the medicines is not followed. The chances of visiting a hospital and emergency rooms were higher by 86 percent and 50 percent respectively. Researchers also observed that there were more car accidents and bone-breaks in cases of patients who were not regular on their medicines.
Thankfully, there were less of head injuries noted researchers.
“These results are concerning since some studies show about 30 to 50 percent of people with epilepsy do not take their medication regularly,†said study author Edward Faught, MD, Director of the University of Alabama Epilepsy Center in Birmingham and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.
“There are many reasons epileptic patients fail to take their seizure medications, including cost, side effects and pregnancy. But this study suggests that none of those reasons overshadow the threat of death or other problems related to uncontrolled seizures. Patients need to stay on their medications and physicians need to recognize and treat issues related to people failing to take epilepsy drugs,†said Faught.
The study was conducted by analyzing the insurance records from three U.S. state Medicaid programs for over eight and a half years. The researchers went through records of 33,658 people with epilepsy who filled at least two epilepsy drug prescriptions for the study.
This study is available as an online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.