A Practical Guide to Supporting People with Epilepsy

This book is a practical guide, with rationale to supporting people with epilepsy. It encompasses epilepsy guidance such as NICE (2012, revised 2019), The Equality Act (2010), the children and families act (2014), current evidence based-practice, and regulatory organisation standards. It is predominantly aimed at nurses and student nurses, especially, those studying learning disability nursing but also residential, respite and supported living services, schools and family carers, to enable them to offer appropriate and evidence-based support to people with epilepsy of all ages.

It is estimated there are approximately 1200 epilepsy related deaths each year in the UK. Many of these are considered to be preventable. High-profile cases have led to an increase in anxiety in people providing services, and greater scrutiny of those services by regulatory bodies. Over the years, the authors have been asked the same questions and witnessed the same misunderstandings and mistakes, by people supporting individuals with epilepsy. So they looked at the common themes and the resources available. It became clear that the information to address these gaps is available, but not easily accessible. There is lots of information in the public domain, however much of it is factual, rather than practical. This book provides practical information and resources with the focus on “what needs to happen”,” how to make it happen” and “who needs to do it”. This book is useful for supporting people with epilepsy wherever they live (both within and outside the United Kingdom).

Rebecca Case qualified as a learning disability nurse in 1997. She has worked with people with learning disabilities and adults and children with epilepsy and other medical conditions. She is currently an epilepsy specialist nurse for the Roald Dahl Marvellous Children’s Charity and Portsmouth Hospitals. She is an independent nurse prescriber and has Masters level qualifications in advanced diagnosis, history taking and physical examination. She has published a number of times and lectures regularly. 

Sinead Blake qualified as a learning disability nurse in 2008. She has worked with both children and adults with learning disabilities and epilepsy. She is currently working in a regional centre supporting adults with complex epilepsy, in a surgical and neurological capacity. Sinead has additional qualifications in epilepsy management, independent nurse prescribing and neurosciences.