Areas of Need in Epilepsy Research: Barbara Jobst, MD

"There are far too many people in this world who have cognitive issues with their epilepsy. We also have not identified a lot of epilepsies, especially in the childhood setting.”

While scientific conferences are often a place of resounding positivity, filled with abstracts and research that can better benefit a disease or condition, they force clinicians to critically think about the next steps in furthering research objectives. This recently completed American Epilepsy Society (AES) Annual Meeting, which took place December 4–8, 2020, is no different, according to Barbara Jobst, MD.

Jobst, director of the Dartmouth Epilepsy Program, also served as the chairwoman of the meeting, and claims that the issues of seizure control are still very relevant, 25 years after she first began her career. While the treatment landscape for patients with epilepsy has continually grown, there still remains a great unmet need to provide seizure care towards all types of epilepsies.

NeurologyLive caught up with Jobst to get her perspective on some of the more pressing topics in epilepsy care, including correctly diagnosing certain epilepsies, which she feels has led to some of the current seizure care inconsistencies.