Strides Being Made For Epilepsy Patients

This is Epilepsy Awareness Month. Bret and Veronica talk to Child Neurologist at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego Dr. Olivia Kim-McManus.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
November is Epilepsy Awareness month. National nonprofit the Care and
Cure Institute is helping us highlight local impacts of pediatric epilepsy.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Joining us now on the COG News liveline is child
neurologist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego and as
socioclinical Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the UCSD
School of Medicine, Doctor Olivia Kim McManus, Good morning.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Good morning, Thank you for having me tell.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Us a little bit about you know, epilepsy. We know
what it is kind of but not necessarily you know
the causes of it and how you know prevalent it
is in our society. Talk to us a little bit
first about that.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in
Americans across age groups and impacts nearly three and a
half million Americans, and it's one of the most common
neurological disorders in children. There can be a lot of
different reasons for why somebody has seizures or recurrent seizures,
and some of the causes can be genetic ideology, stroke.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Tumor how close are we to finding a cure?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I would say that that's a really complex question because
the cure depends on the cause, and so there's so
many different causes of epilepsy across the board. I think
currently it's a really important time in epilepsy because there's
so many advancements both surgically and in terms of new
genetic therapy approaches for epilepsy depending on the underlying diagnosis.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Talk to us a little bit about your research. What
are you doing.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
My background is in pediatric epilepsy. I'm a researcher in
the space of intractable seizures, uncontrolled seizures. Many of the
kids that I take care of are on multiple daily
seizure medicines plus diet therapy, plus have had epilepsy surgery
and are still having seizures. Many of those kids have
an underlying genetic cause, and it may not be anything

(01:56):
that runs in the family. A lot of times these
are changes in our DNA that's new or denovo, so
no family history. So these kids can have changes in
their DNA, and my research is related to new drugs
that can modify the expression of that underlying mutation so
that we can see more normalized neurologic activity and function

(02:19):
in children.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
We're speaking with doctor Olivia Kim McManus, and I know
you're with Rady Hospital, but also you're teaming up with
UC Berkeley and UCSF. How important is it when you
have an issue like epilepsy in trying to find a
way for children and adults for that matter, to live
a normal life, when you have so many different researchers

(02:42):
looking into it.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, it's extremely important. You know, epilepsy is an incredibly
heterogeneous diagnosis and so having experts across the board to
help towards this cause making an improving lives better for
kids and adults is so important. We want to have
every kid have and every adult lived their life to

(03:03):
their fullest. That includes development, you know, being independent as
much as possible, having the therapist to support them to
that end, and controlling seizures, whether through current treatments or
new novel approaches is extremely important. That's where Karen Caare
Institute also was an integral network for me in terms

(03:23):
of having previously been supported by them as an epileptologist
in training in LA and they continue to be incredible support.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
So again Novembers Epilepsy Awareness Month. What is it that
you wish people knew about childhood epilepsy.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I think that it's so important to know that seizures
can look so many different ways. Sometimes it can be
first day of life, the day you're born, that a
child might be born seizing and shaking. Other times it
could be more subtle, like repeated head drops that look benign,
but underneath that your brain activity is just complete chaos.

(04:00):
Now more common in the community than anyone thinks.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
You're giving a lot of patience and families for that matter,
some hope. Doctor, Thank you so much for your time
on San Diego's Morning News.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Thank you so much, Doctor

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Olivia km McManus, a child neurologist at Rady Children's Hospital,
San Diego,