the Management of Epilepsy in Egypt

·  Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: the ILAE definition of DRE as “failure of adequate trials of two or three tolerated, appropriately chosen and used antiepileptic drug schedules (whether as monotherapies or in combination) to achieve sustained seizure freedom”.

·  Epilepsy: the ILAE proposed a practical clinical definition for epilepsy include any of the following:

(1) at least two unprovoked (or reflex) seizures occurring more than 24 hours apart,

(2) one unprovoked (or reflex) seizure and a probability of further seizures similar to the general recurrence risk (at least 60%) after two unprovoked seizures, occurring over the next 10 years, or (3) diagnosis of an epilepsy syndrome

·  Epileptic seizure: the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) defined it as “a transient occurrence of signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain.”

·  Epilepsy treatment gap is defined by the International League Against Epilepsy as follows: “The difference between the number of people with active epilepsy and the number whose seizures are being appropriately treated in a given population at a given time expressed as a percentage. This definition includes diagnostic and therapeutic deficits.”

·  Refractory Status Epilepticus (RSE): status epilepticus that persists despite administration of at least two appropriately chosen and dosed parenteral antiseizures medications that include benzodiazepine. No specific seizure duration is required.

·  Status epilepticus (SE): a neurologic emergency characterized by prolonged seizure with 5 minutes or more of continuous clinical and/or convulsive seizure activity or recurrent seizure activity without recovery of consciousness between seizures with substantial morbidity and mortality rates.

·   Super-refractory status epilepticus: SE that persists for at least 24 hours after the start of anesthesia, whether it occurs without interruption despite appropriately selected treatment with anesthesia, or if it recurs while on appropriately selected and dosed anesthetic treatment, or it recurs after withdrawal of anesthesia and requires reintroduction of anesthetic.