Epilepsy: Past, Present, and Future

One can also anticipate a shift in treatment away from the exclusive emphasis on seizure control. We increasingly recognize that epilepsy is much more than seizures, and that patients with epilepsy may also have depression, impaired memory, and anxiety related to their illness. In the long run, the psychosocial problems of patients with epilepsy cannot be separated from social problems as a whole. Will, for example, the new, and doubtless expensive, treatments for epilepsy be made available to all who need them, or will we be obliged to work in a two-tier system? As health care providers, we can be cautiously optimistic regarding the medical aspects of epilepsy, but we will have to think in quite unanticipated ways to ensure equitable outcomes.