Clinical Therapeutic and Management Strategies for Epilepsy: Psychological Aspects in Children with Epilepsy and Their Parents

Epileptic activities can affect various aspects including neuropsychological and social functions, which lead to reductions of quality of life (QOL) for epileptic children. Accordingly, epileptic children are generally at greater risk of neuropsychological and social dysfunctions than those without epilepsy, even though the majority of epileptic children achieve favorable outcomes. Social function in epileptic children can be negatively impacted due to emotional instability, including stigma associated with having epilepsy. The parents of children with refractory epilepsy could experience severe anxiety regarding clinical seizures in their children, and this severe parental anxiety state could lead to adaptable dysfunction in their children. Moreover, associations between epilepsy and fatigue or headache are well known to clinicians but insufficiently understood. A deeper understanding of these issues in epilepsy could be important for managing the clinical course and treatment regimen. Seizure activities could be associated with impaired neuropsychological/social functions as represented by stigma, fatigue, and headache. Seizure severities are thus important QOL-related factors in terms of neuropsychological and social issues in epileptic children. A relationship between current seizure activity and perception of stigma could be evident in epileptic children. Seizure activity represented as frequent seizures could also be related to fatigue and seizure-associated headache, which can lead to reduced QOL in children with epilepsy. In addition, seizure-related factors in epileptic children including frequent seizures could lead to greater perception of stigma in their parents. Meanwhile, educational intervention about epilepsy for parents could reduce negative emotional influences in the care of children presenting with seizure attacks. Therapeutic management thus appears desirable to immediately obtain better seizure control and establish educational support for parents to improve QOL in children with epilepsy.