Author Response: Temporal Trends and Autopsy Findings of SUDEP Based on Medicolegal Investigations in the United States

Abstract

We thank Dr. Bleasel for his interest in our study.1 We, too, were encouraged to find that the incidence of SUDEP may be declining even in the absence of specific interventions. This confirms what many people caring for people with epilepsy suspected—we have many of the tools to reduce epilepsy mortality already at hand. The next steps are to understand the contribution of each of the measures that Dr. Bleasel highlights—awareness, clinician and patient behavior change, and access to treatment—to the reduction in SUDEP rates to maximize their effect. We also agree—as do people living with epilepsy and their caregivers,2,3 those bereaved by SUDEP,4 and professional societies5—that counseling about SUDEP should be part of general epilepsy education regardless of individual risk to help our patients make fully informed decisions.