Think generic medications are just the same as their brand name equivalents? Think again. Generics may be less expensive - a benefit for insurance providers as well as consumers - but for some, that savings may come at a price.
People living with epilepsy can now keep a diary of their seizures on their iPhone, thanks to the new "My Epilepsy Diary" iPhone app. The app is made available in part by the Epilepsy Therapy Project Clinical Organizer, an integrated suite of consumer health tools and information that offers the app free on www.Epliepsy.com. It can now also be found on the iPhone through the App Store by searching "epilepsy."
Switching from brand name Keppra to generic Keppra (levetiracetam) to treat her epileptic seizures made Tracy Michele sick. "When I was taking Keppra I was a little drowsy in the beginning, but then it went away after about three weeks," she wrote on Daily Strength's discussion board. "I was switched to generic and I now have bad headaches and sleep too much and even have anorexia." The 5-foot 7-inch woman tops the scales at 107 pounds but says all she sees when she looks in the mirror now is "a woman who is very overweight."
A fully functional prototype of a wristwatch-style device that can detect myoclonic and grand mal seizures in the person wearing it and notify caregivers via cell phone or e-mail message within seconds is awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. The SmartWatch is produced by Smart Monitor, an entrepreneurial offshoot of video security company Intellivision. The company hopes that the watch will give peace of mind not only to epileptics but their caregivers as well.
Parents of children diagnosed with epilepsy have the daunting responsibility of helping their child maintain a healthy lifestyle and ensuring he or she has regular medical care. To help parents with this endeavor, the National Center for Project Access and the Epilepsy Foundation have released a new toolkit for parents of children newly diagnosed with epilepsy.
Despite a "thumbs-up" from a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel on GlaxoSmithKline and Valeant's new epilepsy drug Potiga (ezogabine), federal regulatory review of the drug has been pushed back three months. The panel this week reviewed three clinical studies on the drug and found that it helped to control seizures when used as an add-on treatment in certain epilepsy patients. The only red flag was urinary side effects, which the majority of the panel believed could be mitigated by patient monitoring.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory board has given a "thumbs-up" to GlaxoSmithKline's new epilepsy drug Potiga (ezogabine), saying three clinical trials with patients taking the drug show that it effectively controls seizures when used as an add-on treatment in certain epilepsy patients. The main safety concern with Potiga is urinary side effects, which 11 members of the advisory panel said could be mitigated by patient monitoring. Two advisors abstained from voting on that issue.
Two high-fat diets - the classic ketogenic and a modified version of Atkins - can reduce and in some cases completely eliminate seizures in children with absence epilepsy, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Child Neurology. Absence epilepsy is a common seizure disorder that often begins in childhood and involves multiple daily "absent" staring spells. If developed during adolescence, it can lead to more serious generalized seizures.
Participants are being sought by a team of researchers who are working to understand the causes of epilepsy that seems to occur for no reason and why medications to treat epilepsy do or do not work for specific individuals. The study is called the Epilepsy Phenome Genome Project and is funded by a $15 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Soldiers who receive traumatic brain injuries (TBI) while serving in the war may be at a greater risk of developing epilepsy even decades after their brain injury occurred, according to new research published in a recent issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Post-traumatic epilepsy is the most common cause of new-onset epilepsy in young adults, with close to 30,000 new cases reported each year in the United States. The condition is a result of brain damage caused by physical trauma to the brain.
