Sending epilepsy meds, equipment to crisis zones requires multidisciplinary effort

ORLANDO — Shipping medication and equipment to health care professionals for those with epilepsy in crisis zones such as Ukraine to allow for continuity of care requires a multidisciplinary effort, according to a speaker.

“As I was preparing this talk, another terrible war broke out and it made me believe we need to talk about what our patients are going through,” Olga Taraschenko, MD, PhD, an associate professor in the department of neurological sciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said during her presentation at the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting. “And we have to learn how we can better take care of them.”

The foundations of a coordinated response in crisis areas anywhere on Earth are often missing even before events turn for the worse, Taraschenko said, and when a crisis hits, misconceptions about who should be involved, and when, and why and how quickly things can be organized stall the effort.

In the case of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine and the current Israel-Hamas conflicts, health care infrastructure is often collateral or intentional damage, adding to the strain of helping those who need it most. Taraschenko noted the mass destruction or closure of health care facilities in Ukraine due to more than 1,000 attacks as of June, which caused mass disruption of the country’s pharmacy network, limited or ended certain modes of transport and forced the relocations or led to the deaths of physicians and nurses.

For those dealing with and treating epilepsy, these disruptions cause chaos in determining how to acquire and distribute medications, as well as trying to figure out which medications require immediate administration and which can be converted or substituted when the correct medication and doses are not available.

This, Taraschenko, said, requires a global network of connected personnel who can open lines of communication with personnel on the ground, partner with organizations that handle logistics and work with local organizations, government and military to establish delivery corridors.

Currently, the American Academy of Neurology has created a Ukraine Crisis Response Work Group tasked with identifying direct ways to aid neurologists and to create an active database of Ukrainian members able to engage in telemedicine.

Also under way are plans to ship EEG, VNS, neurorehabilitation equipment, prosthetics to Ukraine, as well as a renewed focus on diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injuries and related epilepsy.

“People are in need, not only soldiers but civilians,” Taraschenko said. “You can join an international organization if you have connections to the country that’s in crisis. Surprisingly, certain institutions have local programs.”