Epilepsy Care in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: Risk Factors for Seizure Worsening

Assenza, Giovanni; Lanzone, Jacopo; Brigo, Francesco; Coppola, Antonietta; Gennaro, Giancarlo Di; Lazzaro, Vincenzo Di; Ricci, Lorenzo; Romigi, Andrea; Tombini, Mario; Mecarelli, Oriano

doi:10.3389/fneur.2020.00737

Cited by 123 publications

(213 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Sleep quality was equally similar in both groups. The seizure increase was best related to the number of anti-seizure medications and sleep disturbances [25] . According to the Italy-based study, the increase in the frequency of seizures was less in our study because our patient group had a low seizure frequency (94.5% of individuals had a seizure frequency less than 1 per month).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug compliance and stigmatization in patients with epilepsy

Gul

Atakli

2021

Epilepsy & Behavior

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug compliance and stigmatization in patients with epilepsy

Gul

Atakli

2021

Epilepsy & Behavior

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“…The Italian Ministry of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Centers for Health Care and Medical Assistance Services recommended the suspension of all elective and "non-urgent" procedures, including those concerning radio-diagnostic examinations, surgery, and neurophysiological exams [1][2][3]. Routine outpatient visits were suspended, postponed, and replaced, when possible, by remote assistance (telephone, e-mail, or video-audio-conference consultations) [4][5][6]. However, several issues about the execution of health care assistance during the lockdown period remained unanswered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electroencephalography at the time of Covid-19 pandemic in Italy

et al. 2020

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Objective During the Covid-19 pandemic, government restrictions limited health care to urgent needs. Neurophysiology centers had to suddenly reschedule their activities, with a lack of specific recommendations about electroencephalography (EEG) execution. During the pandemic phase 1, we launched an online survey to understand the flaws and strengths of the EEG management in Italy at the time of Covid-19 pandemic. Methods A 45-item online survey (published from April 16 to 30, 2020), endorsed by the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology (SINC), the Italian League Against epilepsy (LICE), and the Italian Association of Neurophysiology technologists (AITN), collected EEG management data (EEG's number and type, indications, personnel and patients safety, devices' sanification) during the Covid-19 pandemic. Results We received responses from 206 centers. The number of EEGs performed was reduced by 76 ± 20%, and several types of specific EEG (video-EEG, ambulatory-EEG, LTM, polysomnography) were reduced at a minimum. Half of the centers performed inpatient EEGs only for urgencies. Repetitive seizures, encephalitis, and non-convulsive status epilepticus were the most common indications. Covid-19-positive patients received less EEG than negative ones (p < 0.0001). EEG requests came mainly not only from neurologists (n = 176) but also from general practitioners (n = 40), emergentists (n = 79), intensivists (n = 72), and other specialists (n = 53). Those centers which continued performing outpatient EEG examinations were instructed to perform the EEG after a Covid-19-related symptom screening for patients and using personal protective equipment (PPE) through all the procedure. Inpatient EEGs were performed using FFP2/FFP3 masks by neurophysiology technologists in only 50% of cases. Patients executed hyperventilation only for real clinical needs, but often (56%) with a mask. Conclusions Italian neurophysiology centers strongly adhered to government restrictions of lockdown. Some issues emerged, ranging from the evaluation of a proper indication for EEG, technical procedures of EEG recording, and protection of neurophysiology technicians.

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“…In Scotland, the financial impact of COVID-19 has been supported by the Scottish Government with a goal to protect and secure their world-leading research programmes through the provision of a £75 million one-off increase in funding for Scotland’s universities [ 10 ]. More recently, various independent and collaborative multidisciplinary related research studies on COVID-19 have been investigated in the area of equipment and manufacturing [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], pathophysiology [ 15 , 16 , 17 ], neurophysiology [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], radiology [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ], psychology [ 26 , 27 ], diagnostics [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ] and treatment [ 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Assessment of the Novel COVISTRESS Questionnaire: COVID-19 Impact on Physical Activity, Sedentary Action and Psychological Emotion

Ugbolue

Duclos

Urzeala

et al. 2020

JCM

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Globally the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has triggered an economic downturn and a rise in unemployment. As a result, global communities have had to face physical, health, psychological and socio-economical related stressors. The purpose of this study was to assess and report the impact of isolation and effect of coronavirus on selected psychological correlates associated with emotions. Following ethical approval, a mixed methods observational study was conducted using the validated COVISTRESS questionnaire. Two observational study scenarios were evaluated namely “Prior” to the COVID-19 outbreak and “Currently”, i.e., during the COVID-19 pandemic. 10,121 participants from 67 countries completed the COVISTRESS questionnaire. From the questionnaire responses only questions that covered the participant’s occupation; sociodemographic details, isolation and impact of coronavirus were selected. Further analyses were performed on output measures that included leisure time, physical activity, sedentary time and emotions. All output measures were evaluated using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) with an intensity ranging from 0–100. Descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman correlational analysis were applied to the leisure time, physical activity, sedentary time and emotional feeling datasets; p = 0.05 was set as the significance level. Both males and females displayed similar output measures. The Wilcoxon signed rank test showed significant differences with respect to “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” for sedentary activity (Z = −40.462, p < 0.001), physical activity (Z = −30.751, p < 0.001) and all other emotional feeling output measures. A moderate correlation between “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” was observed among the Males (r = 0.720) in comparison to the Females (r = 0.639) for sedentary activity while weaker correlations (r < 0.253) were observed for physical activity and emotional feeling measurements, respectively. Our study reported incremental differences in the physical and psychological output measures reported, i.e., “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently”. “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” participants increased their sedentary habits by 2.98%, and the level of physical activity reduced by 2.42%, depression levels increased by 21.62%, anxiety levels increased by 16.71%, and stress levels increased by 21.8%. There were no correlations (r) between leisure, physical activity and sedentary action (i.e., “Prior” = −0.071; “Currently” = −0.097); no correlations (r) between leisure physical activity and emotion (i.e., −0.071 > r > 0.081) for “Prior”; and poor correlations (r) between leisure, physical activity and sedentary action (i.e., −0.078 > r > 0.167) for “Current”. The correlations (r) between sedentary action and emotion for “Prior” and “Currently” were (−0.100 > r > 0.075) and (−0.040 > r > 0.041) respectively. The findings presented here indicate that the COVISTRESS project has created awareness in relation to the physical and psychological impact resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings have also highlighted individual distress caused by COVID-19 and associated health consequences for the global community.

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Epilepsy Care in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy: Risk Factors for Seizure Worsening

Cited by 123 publications

References 34 publications

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug compliance and stigmatization in patients with epilepsy

Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on drug compliance and stigmatization in patients with epilepsy

Electroencephalography at the time of Covid-19 pandemic in Italy

An Assessment of the Novel COVISTRESS Questionnaire: COVID-19 Impact on Physical Activity, Sedentary Action and Psychological Emotion

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