This week, Bobbi Conner talks with Dr. Janelle Wagner about behavioral health interventions for children with epilepsy. Dr. Wagner is a Professor in the College of Nursing and Pediatrics and she’s a faculty member at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at MUSC.
TRANSCRIPT:
Conner: I'm Bobbi Conner for South Carolina Public Radio with Health Focus here at the radio studio for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Behavioral health interventions can be an important part of managing the health and well-being of children and teens living with epilepsy. Doctor Janelle Wagner is here to talk about the details. Doctor Wagner is a Research Professor in the College of Nursing and Pediatrics, and she's a faculty member at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at MUSC. Doctor Wagner, tell us briefly about pediatric epilepsy.
Dr. Wagner: Pediatric epilepsy affects about 1% of children and teens across the globe. In the United States, we estimate about 470,000 youth under the age of 14 have epilepsy. So, it's actually much more common than a lot of people think.
Conner: Tell us what behavioral health really means in the context of children and teens who have epilepsy.
Dr. Wagner: Behavioral health is a large umbrella that could include all areas of functioning, from cognitive to emotions to behavior to quality of life, to epilepsy management.
Conner: Tell us about the six-year study that your team was involved in that looked at behavioral health and pediatric epilepsy.
Dr. Wagner: This was a project funded by the National Institute for Nursing Research, and we were looking at the benefit of an intervention to help improve adherence to seizure medications. So, this included reminders. It also included feedback about how adherent they had been the previous week. And then for kids who the baseline piece of the intervention wasn't enough, we included problem solving with a therapist.
Conner: And I understand your team is working on a new study that examines the benefit of treatment for executive functioning in teens with epilepsy. Tell us about that study.
Dr. Wagner: This study is focused on another aspect of behavioral health. This study includes an intervention that works with teens with epilepsy to improve their executive functions, which are some cognitive functions that include things like organization and planning and behavioral regulation and attention. So, sort of those higher order processes that are really helpful to organizing your daily life, but then also participating in academic endeavors at school.
Conner: It sounds like the theme that's being studied here, Doctor Wagner, is that the children can help themselves, by the routines and the behaviors that they're incorporating into their daily lives.
Dr. Wagner: I think one of the hardest things about epilepsy is families feeling like they don't have control over what's happening, because you can do everything that you're supposed to do as far as medication and treatment and still have seizures. So, with these behavioral health interventions, we are trying to equip them with skills so that they can live their lives to the fullest, or be able to see how they have some control in their daily lives.
Conner: Doctor Wagner, thanks for this information about children and teens and epilepsy.
Dr. Wagner: You're welcome.
Conner: From the radio studio for the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, I'm Bobbi Conner for South Carolina public Radio.
Health Focus transcripts are intended to accurately represent the original audio version of the program; however, some discrepancies or inaccuracies may exist. The audio format serves as the official record of Health Focus programming.
