https://aura-healthcare.gitbooks.io/aura-book/content/
According to World Health Organization, Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that affects around 6 millions people of all ages and social conditions in Europe[1]. In France, we count 600 000 epileptic patients[1].
Patient living conditions are difficult due to unpredictability of epilepsy seizures.
They cause:
- many accidents in daily life (falls, burns, ...)
- social exclusion
- from the others due to fear provoked by theses seizures
- from the educational and work environment because of the risks resulting from unadapted logistics
- permanent life-threatning danger. An untreated long-lasting epilepsy seizure episode can lead to fatal complications (SUDEP). Each year, 33 000 people died from this disease in Europe[1]
Epilepsy is also very impacting for the patient relatives who:
- lives with a constant fear from an upcoming seizure
- organizes their lifes in order to take care and support the patients
Medicine is the most common way of treating epilepsy. It prevents or stop seizures in 70% of patients[2]. For the remaining 30% patients, called pharmcoresistant, we usually consider to remove epileptic focus by surgery. However only part of the patient are good candidates and this invasive operation carries some risks.
They are also alternatives treatments:
- Therapeutic and Seizure alert devices
- Dietaries approachs
- Complementary health approachs
Aura doesn't cure epilepsy because it doesn't stop seizures. But it provides usefull informations about the disease and helps patients to better live with it (seizure detection, alert generation, risk profil extraction, ...). Our goal is to help parents to take care of their epileptic childrens, help people that medicine can't help, help people until they find an efficient treatment.
[1] Fondation Pour la Recherche sur l'Epilepsie, Comprendre l'epilepsie - Qu'est ce que c'est ? Available on http://www.fondation-epilepsie.fr/comprendre-epilepsie/quest-ce-que-cest/
[2] Epilepsy Foundation, Treating Seizures and Epilepsy, http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epilepsy [ Accessed 3 Apr. 2017 ]
If you want to improve this documentation, please refer to How To Contribute