Jerry J Shih: Unmet Needs in Epilepsy

Shih:

I think one of the biggest unmet needs in the field of epilepsy is how do we improve quality of life in patients who continue to have seizures? A lot of energies have been focused on trying to eliminate seizures to make people seizure-free, and absolutely that's our primary goal.

But for patients who are not seizure-free and who have undergone all of the appropriate studies — have tried a number of medications, may have gone through some surgical evaluation and procedures and are still not seizure-free — I think one of the challenges is how we as a society can come up with better ways of elevating their quality of care, our quality of life.

And in being able to target certain things that patients with seizures can do that will make them function better in terms of employment, make them function better in terms of their relationships with other people and things like that.

Ao as an example, a lot of patients with seizures have problems with Lieut and I think it would be, if research can be developed that would really determine how to identify patients who are at risk for developing mood problems, and then to be able to appropriately treat them.

I think would be one of the better things that can come out in terms of other areas of unmet needs in my mind would be an area in terms of looking at patients who have had surgery and who are not seizure-free and that population sometimes doesn't do as well.