Abstracts

Rationale: Epilepsy is a chronic condition with a potential for affecting cognition, behavior and sleep. The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is not investigated usually by the neurologists during the office visits although some studies have shown that parents desire that these therapies be discussed with them. The rationale for conducting this study was to assess the desire for and prevalence of CAM use.Methods: This was a prospective questionnaire based study conducted at Dayton Children’s Hospital, Division of Neurology at the outpatient clinic. Between January 1st 2015 to April 30th 2015 patients and their families between the ages of 6 months to 18 years with an established diagnosis of epilepsy were given the questionnaire during their office visit. The questionnaire assessed the use of CAM in children with epilepsy, specific indications for their use, cost of these therapies as well as parent perception of the efficacy of these therapies. Demographic data included age, sex, classification of epilepsy, number of seizures, whether intractable or not as well as type of CAM used and co- morbidities. Comparisons between patients who were interested in CAM use vs. not interested were made with Fisher’s exact tests.Results: 66 questionnaires were analyzed. Patient age ranged from 9 months to 21 years.50% were female.91% were white, 29% had intractable epilepsy. The main types of epilepsy were idiopathic generalized epilepsy (35 %), idiopathic localization related epilepsy (26%) and symptomatic localization related epilepsy (17%). There were no differences in demographics between patients who were interested in CAM use versus not. 50 patients (76%) indicated that they would be interested in using CAM. Types of CAM desired were dietary changes (68%),herbal supplements (58%),chiropractice (42%), yoga and homeopathy (34% each).1 patient wanted to try medical marijuana. 24% patients were using CAM,44% shared this information with their neurologist. Multi-vitamins were the main type of medication used. 60% of patients desired that their neurologists discuss use of CAM with them.42% of the patients who desired CAM had at least one seizure per month compared to only 6% of patients who did not desire CAM (p=0.013). 90% (17/19) of patients with intractable epilepsy desired CAM vs.70% (33/47%) of patients without intractable epilepsy (p = 0.123)Conclusions: Majority of patients with epilepsy want to use CAM and desire that their neurologist discuss CAM with them. The patients who desired CAM had a higher frequency of seizures compared to patients who did not desire CAM. We conclude that CAM use in patients with epilepsy should be addressed by the neurologist on a regular basis.