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Most epileptics go untreated because of stigma, experts say
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BUENOS AIRES (September 18, 1997 00:39 a.m. EDT) - Epilepsy is the world's
most common serious brain disorder, but three-fourths of its victims get no
treatment, mainly because of social stigma, a British expert said on
Wednesday.

"It's a very dramatic condition, and although it is one of the oldest
medical disorders known to mankind, it still leads to fear,
misunderstanding, anxiety, rejection and stigma," said Dr. Edward Reynolds
of London's King College Hospital.

Some 40 million people suffer from epilepsy, but the majority could improve
with drugs that are largely affordable.

"It is a remarkable fact that we can successfully treat epilepsy in three
out of four patients, and yet three-quarters of patients in the world are
not getting any treatment," he told Reuters in an interview during the
World Congress of Neurology in Buenos Aires.

Reynolds said studies show that in the developing world, up to 90 percent
of people who suffer from epilepsy are not getting any treatment at all.

The British doctor chairs a global campaign against epilepsy, "Out of the
Shadows," which was launched in June by the World Health Organization, the
International League against Epilepsy and the International Bureau for
Epilepsy.

Reynolds said people with epilepsy often try to hide it for fear of the
social consequences -- ranging from the embarrassment of suffering seizures
in public to difficulty getting jobs or a driver's license, and even laws
in some countries barring epileptics from getting married.

"Perhaps they only get the seizures at home, at night. You wouldn't know if
you passed them in the street that have epilepsy unless they collapse in
front of you and have a seizure," Reynolds said.

And even people who have their epilepsy controlled by medicine continue to
suffer from ignorance and stigma.

"For centuries epilepsy was viewed as either supernatural or as mental
illness behavior. We now know it's a neurological disorder resulting from
certain electrical discharges in the brain, but the general public have not
yet got this message," said the British expert.

Richard Holmes, president of the International Bureau for Epilepsy, told
the same conference in Buenos aires: "Cancer, leprosy and epilepsy were the
three great unmentionables until as recent as 30 years ago."

"Now cancer is more openly discussed, while leprosy is less of a taboo. We
would like to see the same for epilepsy."

Copyright 1997 Nando.net
Copyright 1997 Reuter Information Service
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