Pavel Klein, MD: Epilepsy Populations Impacted by COVID-19

“For them, much of the energy they have is discharged through physical activity. Now, that physical activity is constrained.”

Throughout much of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians and researchers have tried to understand whether the virus would impact certain neurological disorders and their treatment regimens. In a year which the United States was placed under heavy lockdown for the majority of the time with restrictions that followed, patients were forced to make adjustments to how they meet their doctors, as well as to the access they may have to clinical care.

Through there have not been any concrete data to show which epilepsy populations have been hindered more by the pandemic, Pavel Klein, MD, indicated that those with developmental abnormalities have likely been impacted the most. Klein, the director of the Mid-Atlantic Epilepsy and Sleep Center in Bethesda, MD, and clinical professor, George Washington University, feels as though this patient population is at a higher risk due to the increased number of comorbidities associated with their disease.

In an interview with NeurologyLive, Klein provided context on which epilepsy populations may have been impacted the most by the pandemic, as well as why the lack of physical activity has an even greater detriment to these patients.