MONDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly one in every 100 American adults has active epilepsy, and more than one-third of them are not receiving adequate treatment, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in the Aug. 8 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Rosemarie Kobau, of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the CDC, and colleagues analyzed data on more than 120,000 non-institutionalized adults in 19 states from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.
The researchers found that 1.65 percent of the subjects had a history of epilepsy and that 0.84 percent had active epilepsy, which was defined as a history of epilepsy and currently taking medication or reporting one or more seizures during the past three months. Among subjects with active epilepsy, they found that 65 percent reported more than one seizure during the past month and that 16 percent were not currently taking anti-seizure medications. They also found that 34.9 percent of active epilepsy subjects reporting not seeing a neurologist or an epilepsy specialist in the previous year.
"Additional descriptive and analytic studies of epilepsy occurrence in diverse U.S. communities and populations are needed to better characterize epilepsy incidence rates, risk factors and etiologies, and types and severity, as well as epilepsy-associated conditions and disabilities," the authors write. "Community-based strategies that link health care providers with social services such as public transportation, mental health services, and employment services might improve quality of life in persons with epilepsy. Implementing educational programs developed by CDC and the Epilepsy Foundation for schools, emergency responders, employers, providers, and the general public can increase awareness about epilepsy and reduce stigma associated with this disorder."