Quantitative Assessment in Epilepsy Care

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Principles and Practice of Clinimetrics in Epilepsy

   • Alvan R Feinstein

   Pages 1-10

3. Statistical Aspects of the Measurement of Clinical Care in Epilepsy

   • A L Johnson

   Pages 11-28

4. Seizure Frequency as Treatment Effect Parameter: General Considerations

   • M. W. Lammers, H. Meinardi

   Pages 29-33

5. Seizure Frequency as Treatment Effect Parameter

   • A. Martins da Silva, E. Lourenço, J. M. Nunes, D. Mendonça

   Pages 35-42

6. Seizure Frequency as Treatment Effect Parameter in Epileptic Patients: A Critical Appraisal of the Clinimetric Approach

   • A. Keyser

   Pages 43-47

7. Seizure Severity as Treatment Effect Parameter

   • César Viteri, José Manuel Martínez-Lage

   Pages 49-54

8. Quantitative Approaches to Seizure Severity

   • Joyce A. Cramer, Richard H. Mattson

   Pages 55-71

9. General Discussion of the Assessment and Representation of the Elements Seizure Frequency and Seizure Severity

   • Harry Meinardi, Joyce A. Cramer, Gus A. Baker, Antonio Martins da Silva

   Pages 73-81

10. Health Status in Epilepsy Care

    • Aristides Kazis, Sevasti Bostantjopoulou

    Pages 83-93

11. Health Status in Epilepsy Care: Clinimetric Approach

    • P. Jallon

    Pages 95-101

12. Drug Choice and Replacement

    • D. G. A. Kasteleijn-Nolst Trenité

    Pages 103-107

13. Individualization of Antiepileptic Drug Therapy

    • Y. A. Hekster, D. J. P. Wijsman, E. W. Wuis, T. B. Vree, H. Meinardi

    Pages 109-116

14. On the Reporting of Adverse Drug Events

    • M. W. Lammers, H. Meinardi

    Pages 117-122

15. Quantitative Assessment of Adverse Drug Effects

    • Richard H. Mattson, Joyce A. Cramer

    Pages 123-135

16. Conventional and Clinimetric Approaches to Individualization of Antiepileptic Drug Therapy

    • John S. Duncan

    Pages 137-143

17. Psychosocial Consequences of Epilepsy

    • Jan Vermeulen, Raphael Canger

    Pages 145-153

18. A Clinimetric Approach for Psychosocial Effects

    • Albert P. Aldenkamp

    Pages 155-161

19. General Discussion of the Part Played by Health Status, Adverse Effects of Treatment and Psychosocial Factors in the Construction of indexes

    • Harry Meinardi, Joyce A. Cramer, Gus A. Baker, Antonio Martins da Silva

    Pages 163-170

20. Global Assessments in Epilepsy

    • David Chadwick, Ann Jacoby

    Pages 171-176

Advances in epilepsy in recent decades have allowed for improved algorithms for diagnosis and a common understanding of terminology with the development of the International Classifications of Seizures and the Epilepsies. Nevertheless, no common system exists for the estimation of epilepsy severity or its impact on quality of life. Therefore, epileptologists lack the ability to make quantitative assessments of individual patients for comparison of care or for meta-analyses in clinical trials. This book on the Quantitative Assessment of Epilepsy Care approaches this omission by addressing the potential application of clinimetrics within the framework of epilepsy treatment. Clinimetrics is a fast growing discipline concerned with the quantification of clinical symptoms with respect to decision making relating to diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. These methods allow for the development and validation of clinical scoring systems. For example, the Glasgow Coma Scale is widely used. As a chronic disorder, epilepsy would benefit from clinimetric methodology to create uniformity and to allow for comparisons among evaluations. In addition, epileptologists have not yet developed assessments of health related quality of life to define the overall condition of the chronic epilepsy patient and various therapeutic endpoints. While clini­ metric tools are essential for research, they will also be useful in clinical practice for the care of individual patients by documenting status and changes over time. This treatise will provide critical analyses of whether existing rating scales and techniques are valid to use, and which types of scales and techniques require further development.

• assessment
• care
• classification
• clinical trial
• development
• diagnosis
• drug
• epilepsy
• methodology
• patients
• quality
• quality of life
• research
• therapy
• treatment

• Instituut voor Epilepsiebestrijding, Heemstede, The Netherlands

  Harry Meinardi

• Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, West Haven, USA

  Joyce A. Cramer

• Yale University, New Haven, USA

  Joyce A. Cramer

• The Walton Centre, Liverpool, UK

  Gus A. Baker

• Hospital Geral de Santo António and Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

  Antonio Martins Silva

Policies and ethics