Specialized rehabilitation program shows promise in newly diagnosed epilepsy

A specialized inpatient rehabilitation program appears to help individuals with newly diagnosed epilepsy in terms of emotional adaptation and perceived restrictions due to the medical condition, as reported in a study.

For the prospective, controlled study, researchers evaluated the 1-year follow-up assessment of patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy after completing a rehabilitation program at an epilepsy centre (rehabilitation group, n=74; mean age 47.7 years, 33.8 percent female) against the prerehabilitation assessment of a control group of patients with similar epilepsy duration, but without rehabilitation in the first year after diagnosis (n=56; mean age 45.5 years, 41.1 percent female). There were no significant between-group differences in sociodemographic and health characteristics.

Emotional adaptation to epilepsy, depression, and anxiety were the primary outcome measures. Overall quality of life (QoL), overall health, perceived restrictions because of epilepsy, level of information about epilepsy, and employment status were also assessed as secondary outcome measures.

Results showed that compared with the control group, the rehabilitation group had significantly better emotional adaptation to epilepsy (p=0.003), overall QoL (p=0.006), overall health (p=0.011), perceived restrictions because of epilepsy (p<0.001), and subjective level of information about epilepsy (p<0.001).

The rehabilitation and control groups did not differ in terms of depression, anxiety, and employment status.

A year after rehabilitation, patients in the rehabilitation group were more likely to be seizure-free and less often on sickness absence compared with those in the control group (p<0.001 for both).

The findings underscore the importance of early identification of patients with a greater need for support.