Yoga intervention significantly reduced stigma of epilepsy, improved quality of life

Key takeaways:

• The study included 160 adults with epilepsy given either yoga and psychoeducation or sham, then followed up for 6 months.
• The yoga intervention was linked to greater odds of seizure reduction or remission.

Yoga therapy significantly reduced the felt stigma of epilepsy along with improving anxiety and quality of life at 6 months compared to sham, according to research presented in Neurology.

“Felt stigma is shown to significantly restrict access to treatment, health care and medication adherence ... therefore demonstrating a direct impact on the clinical outcomes of epilepsy,” Kirandeep Kaur, PhD, of the department of neurology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, and colleagues wrote. “To date, there exists no intervention with proven efficacy to mitigate felt stigma in epilepsy.”

Kaur and colleagues sought to investigate whether a combination of yoga and psychoeducation were effective in reducing felt stigma, neuropsychiatric outcomes and seizure frequency compared with sham in patients with epilepsy.

Their assessor blinded, sham-yoga randomized, controlled trial included 160 individuals aged 18 to 60 who scored higher than the cut-off for felt stigma (four or higher) as measured by the Kilifi Stigma Scale. Patients were assigned on a 1:1 basis to receive either yoga therapy plus psychoeducation or sham yoga plus psychoeducation over seven sessions lasting 45 to 60 minutes each for 3 months.

The primary outcome was the degree of decrease in felt stigma for those in the intervention arm compared to sham, measured by the Kilifi Stigma Scale. Primary and secondary outcomes (seizure frequency, quality of life, anxiety, depression, mindfulness, trait rumination, cognitive impairment, emotion regulation) were assessed at baseline, 3 months and 6 months. Parametric/non-parametric ANCOVA and chi-square test were used to compare each study arm.

At the end of the 6-month follow-up, those in the yoga practice arm reported significant reduction in felt stigma compared with those in the sham group (Cohen’s d = 0.23; 95% CI [-0.08, 0.55]).

The researchers reported that odds of seizure reduction were greater than 50% compared with baseline (OR = 4.11; 95% CI, 1.34, 14.69) and complete seizure remission (OR = 7.4; 95% CI, 1.75, 55.89) was observed in the active yoga group. They also noted significant improvement in symptoms of anxiety, cognitive impairment, mindfulness and quality of life in the intervention group relative to the sham group.

“This intervention was efficacious in managing neuropsychiatric comorbidities in epilepsy,” Kaur and colleagues wrote.