Almost 4,000 teachers, school operators and students of about 100 institutions in Rome and the province, public and private, from primary schools to high schools, today are able to manage epileptic seizures in the classroom, with competence, awareness, safety for the young patient and drastically reducing emergency calls to 112 and unnecessary access to the emergency room. This is thanks to “the school is not afraid of crises”, the training project launched in 2016 by the Child Jesus children’s Hospital of the capital, and still ongoing, in collaboration with the Italian League Against Epilepsy ( www.lice.it ).
An initiative by the specialized staff of the Child Jesus hospital that continued without interruption with meetings both in presence and at a distance even in the hardest period of Covid and thanks to which, as follows from the last monitoring in the 12 months following the training (reference year 2019) 170 epileptic seizures were managed at school, applying the correct assistance maneuvers: 25 lasted over 2 minutes and school operators administered the emergency medication as per procedure. Only for 22 patients the emergency number was called, and only 17 were taken to the emergency room.
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World Epilepsy Day
And the opportunity to talk about this initiative, and the results obtained that are being published in the scientific journal Epilepsy, is the world Epilepsy Day, which with initiatives coordinated in our country by the LICE, is celebrated every second Monday in February. This year on the 14th, Valentine’s day, which is protector of epileptic patients, at 12 o’clock The Specialists of the Pediatric Hospital of the Holy See will be live social on the Facebook page and on the ospedale
Why schools
About 30% of epileptic seizures occur in a school environment and 40% of calls to the emergency number 112 that depart from schools are precisely for an epileptic seizure. 90% of seizure attacks last less than 2 minutes and require only physical assistance, but not medical intervention. When the crisis lasts longer, emergency care may become necessary, which may also involve hospitalization in intensive care. In these situations, that is, over two minutes in duration, a correct and timely administration of specific drugs can interrupt the crisis, avoid hospitalization and, above all, prevent even serious neurological consequences. “In 90% of cases seizures are not dangerous, and last less than two minutes,” he explains Tommaso Renzetti, coordinator for the health professions Department neuroscience OPBG and referent of the project-after this time crises could become dangerous, and it is known from published data that when a crisis exceeds 5 minutes there are several chances that it also exceeds 30, which can create problems for the small patient”.
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“What you have to do in case of crisis – explains Renzetti – is not to try to block the involuntary movements of the patient or to lift him if he is on the ground, but to wait looking at the clock and when you exceed the two minutes to administer the drug. It is not complicated, the solution is to increase the culture of seizure management”. (School leaders who want to access OPBG courses can write to the email [email protected])
The most common fears in schools
It’s not complicated, just learn. But the fact is that epilepsy is a disease around which prejudices, fakes, and even fears circulate. “In fact – confirms the expert-when parents communicate to the school the pathology of the child, some, and I speak especially of private institutions, do not welcome the child so as not to have to be in a position to administer the emergency medication, or ask a parent for the presence so that it is a family member who gives the medicine. Going into schools we realized that the most common fear among teachers is to harm the child, and to have to manage the medicine”.
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“People with epilepsy are still victims of prejudice and limitations in various areas of their social life: School, sport, work. This is why marginalization and discrimination must be fought with every possible information, training and awareness – raising initiative-underlines Federico Vigevano, director of the Department of Neuroscience of the Child Jesus-it is scientifically proven that educating the school in the management of children and young people suffering from epilepsy promotes inclusion, inclusion in the classroom, improves their quality of life with positive effects also on the anxiety levels of parents and significantly reduces unnecessary access to the emergency room. It is also undeniable that this educational program has a high cultural value for classmates and over time will improve the acceptance of the disease by society”.
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Removing prejudices, spreading the culture of the disease promoting acceptance and improving the lives of patients of all ages is also the goal of “I see the stars”, a LICE campaign and a short (which is already in a reduced version on the FB page of LICE and that from February 14 will be in the full version of 4 and a half minutes) whose testimonial Umberto Guidoni, the Italian astronaut who was the first European to set foot on the International Space Station. The meaning of the message of the Italian League Against Epilepsy, which this year turns 50, is to raise awareness against the social stigma that still surrounds those suffering from epilepsy and invite these patients to achieve goals that seem, only seem, impossible (like the stars, hence the metaphor), not to surrender to one’s condition and not to give in to feelings of distrust and self-evaluation, to achieve, with awareness and with the right support, a better quality of life, which today is absolutely possible.
Epilepsy, epilepsies
“Epilepsy is the second most prevalent neurological disease in the world, with peaks among children and the elderly. About 65 million are epileptics globally, 6 million in Europe, and 500-600 thousand in Italy. And it is underestimates-he says Laura Tassi, President LICE, medical director and neurologist at Niguarda in Milan-because it is a condition that tends to be silenced by being shrouded in social stigma, there is a dark part that surrounds the disease. that it is a chronic disease, lasts a lifetime and that it is not one, but many pathologies, of different types and more or less rare. “against epilepsy, once the diagnosis is reached, we have many drugs available. Since the 90s there has been a real explosion of molecules – Tassi recalls – that today allow us to control 70% of patients”. So 30% of patients are resistant to therapies: these people can not control seizures with drugs “in cases of drug resistance you can think of other avenues: for some types of epilepsy there is surgery, or stimulation with electrodes, diets. We advise you to contact specialized centers that are on the site of the LICE https://www.lice.it), adds rates.
“We have patients who after meeting 3-4 specialists still do not have clear what they suffer from, we must reassure them, explain what the disease consists of things is a crisis – says the neurologist – the patient must be included in a project, must feel in a program, must know that there is always a next stage. That this disease is like the others. Patients must be explained everything and then, we doctors, we can walk with them”.
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Epilepsy and vaccine
“We have always recommended vaccination against covid to adults and children with epilepsy-says past-president LICE Oriano Mecarelli, already Department of Human Neuroscience at the Sapienza University of Rome-and the feeling in fact is that epileptics are not no-VA. Vaccines are not contraindicated and the therapy in place does not contraindicate vaccination, if someone has said the opposite has been wrong”. “Vaccinating our children – Tassi reiterates – is a moral and health duty”.
The Colosseum in purple
On the evening of February 14, the International Epileps da da edizione edition 2022 will be celebrated with a purple light show that will color the Flavian Amphitheater, as a symbol of the fight against prejudice and to raise awareness of this important disease. The initiative is promoted by LICE.