Use of Interval Therapy with Benzodiazepines to Prevent Seizure Recurrence in Stressful Situations

Abstract

Introduction: Antiseizure medications (ASMs) control 70–75% of seizures. Accepting stress as a trigger for seizures, intervention, at the time of predictable stress, should offer a therapeutic option. Mode of intervention: Intervention requires the maintenance of an accurate seizure diary to identify a recurring pattern. With a questioning approach to that diary, the clinician may intervene when stressful provocateurs occur. Benzodiazepines, such as clobazam, initiated prior to the predictable stress, and continued until after it has passed, should be short lived, making serious adverse effects unlikely. Benzodiazepines have a dual benefit, being both anxietolytic and raising the seizure threshold in patients with epilepsy. Discussion: Many patients claim stress provokes their seizures and may not be aware the stress was the provocateur, until after a seizure occurred, leading to a retrospective claim of the relationship. To confirm the relationship, permitting preventative measures, before exposure to provocative factors, often unable to be avoided, requires maintenance and review of a detailed diary. Interval temporary use of benzodiazepines, such as clobazam, or alternatively clonazepam, diazepam or nitrazepam, offers a reasonable response to obviate subsequent seizures, and should be continued, for a brief period, after the risk has abated. Subsequent review of the diary, over a period of repeated exposures to the identified stress, will confirm or refute the therapeutic effect. Conclusion: Judicious use of interval therapy, with one of the benzodiazepines, covering the period of stressful provocation, offers adjunctive treatment of possible refractory epilepsy, based upon the review of the strictly maintained epilepsy/seizure diary.