2023-06-14 18:01:00
Three levels of care will now be offered for this disease which affects 600,000 people in France with very debilitating consequences on a daily basis.
A health course to better detect and coordinate the care of people suffering from epilepsy: this is the culmination of a project co-managed by the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) and the High Authority for Health (HAS), presented this Wednesday, June 14 and set up as part of the health system transformation strategy.
Epilepsy is one of the ten chronic diseases whose course had been retained. The health authorities started from the observation that 600,000 people suffer from it in our country (1% of the population) with too great disparities in care and an obvious lack of support.
Associated disorders that impact daily life
“22% of patients prescribed an antiepileptic have never seen a specialist for this disease”, deplores Lionel Collet, president of the HAS. A difficulty increased by the very varied forms of the disease. “There is not one but a large number of epilepsies. This disease is very difficult to understand because it brings together very diverse realities”, confirms Cécile Sabourdy, neurologist at the Grenoble University Hospital.
The specialist mentions “very diverse causes” and especially “Associated damage that can affect memory, attention, strongly impact daily life and that of loved ones and cause anxiety-depressive disorders.”
Read also :
Epilepsy: “There are lots of different diseases”, says Dr Pierre Meyer, neuropediatrician at Montpellier University Hospital
Three levels of support
Difficulties of school or professional integration, impossibility of driving, stigmatization… A real situation of handicap, in particular for the third of the patients who do not show themselves to be or little reactive to the treatments.
“A crisis provokes a feeling of impending death which can be traumatic for the siblings, have an impact on the educational attitude of the family towards a child, explains Stéphane Auvin, neuropediatrician in Paris. That’s why we also have to support the parents.”
The health course established in conjunction with professionals offers three levels of care: level 1 for entry into the course with the attending physician or emergency physician, level 2 for screening and follow-up with a treating neurologist, level 3 to allow the most complex cases to have easier access to experts.
A shortage of neurologists to be resolved
“Putting the general practitioner back at the heart of the system will be decisive because many patients see the specialist more than their own general practitioner”abounds Cécile Sabourdy.
Christophe Lucas, president of the Epilepsie France association, welcomes this announcement “which corresponds to a strong expectation of families, in demand for information”. According to him, it is urgent to “demystify this disease which scares, as in the Anglo-Saxon countries which speak regarding it more freely.”
Behind the good intentions, remains the question of means once morest a background of shortage of neurologists. France has only 3,000, of which only 350 specialize in epilepsy for adults and a hundred for children.
1686769761
#Early #detection #adapted #followup #creation #health #pathway #people #suffering #epilepsy
