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Language analysis aids epilepsy diagnosis
Mike Waites Health Correspondent RISKS of wrongly diagnosing epilepsy in thousands of people could be reduced if doctors analyse the language used by patients to describe their seizures, according to research being carried out in Yorkshire.
Neurologists, linguists and epilepsy experts from across Europe will meet in Sheffield on Friday to discuss the approach which it is hoped will help doctors distinguish better between people suffering from the condition, caused by excessive electrical discharges in the brain, and those suffering non-epileptic seizures, caused by emotional trauma.
Drawbacks with existing methods of diagnosis mean up to 38,000 people in the UK are wrongly believed to have epilepsy. Nearly a quarter of 300 people who attend the National Society for Epilepsy's assessment and treatment centre are each year found not to have the illness.
Many have been given potentially harmful treatment with anti-epileptic drugs which can have significant side-effects.
Concern has been further raised following the case of a specialist from Leicester who was found to have misdiagnosed 600 children with the condition, leaving some "zombie-like" due to strong medication while others suffered severe mood swings, sleeplessness and headaches.
The new method of diagnosis has been pioneered in Germany and is now being researched at Sheffield University's academic neurology unit.
Patients are asked to describe their experiences during seizures to doctors who are trained how to listen to what patients say.
Using a process called conversation analysis, researchers have found that people suffering from seizures talk about them in one way if they are caused by epilepsy and in another if they have a psychological root.
A patient with epilepsy will tend to volunteer many details about what it felt like to have a seizure and how they will try to "fight it off", whereas patients with non-epileptic seizures talk about them in terms of a complete memory loss which is more similar to amnesia linked to traumatic experiences.
Markus Reuber, from the neurology unit, said: "This conference will give experts from across the UK and Europe the chance to come together and show how a linguistic research technique can help doctors when they meet patients with seizures.
"Diagnosing epilepsy as opposed to non-epileptic seizures is always difficult as there is no single clinical feature that would allow a definite diagnosis one way or the other.
"However, we hope that through developing the use of conversation analysis as a diagnostic tool we will be able to ensure that people suffering from seizures will get the best and most appropriate treatment as quickly as possible."
Figures show 456,000 people in Britain have epilepsy
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