Convulsions: in Campania an algorithm will allow to optimize triage and therapy

Seizures affect approximately 2% of the population and often require emergency medical interventions. In Campania, an algorithm will allow for the optimization of triage and therapy

Seizures affect approximately 2% of the population, of all ages, causing alterations in consciousness and often requiring emergency medical intervention.

With the aim of improving, in the persistent health emergency linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the management and care of patients with this problem, at the instigation of the School of Medicine and Surgery of Federico II of Naples and the Neapolitan healthcare consultancy and planning company SANIPROGEST, a series of meetings was promoted with the major experts in Neurology and Emergency Room who work in Campania.

The meetings highlighted the need, in order to reduce improper access to the “Emergency Room”, to outline a rigorous, shared and validated path at the regional level, to welcome patients with optimal treatments in the various stages of the epileptic episode and to guarantee the best and most effective triage and emergency therapy. We therefore worked on a therapeutic algorithm that provides a shared approach between the various specialists who intervene in the different phases of the emergency epileptic crisis.

The work also aims to build a network for the clinical and managerial management of convulsive symptoms and optimize diagnostic procedures to intercept events that require hospitalization and specific care, also in the perspective of a radical change in emergency management, with the aim of producing a real Campania PDTA, on which the Region is already working.

To take stock, this Thursday - October 21, 2021 - from 9.00 to 14.00, at the Holiday Inn of the Centro Direzionale (Isola E6, Naples) Antonio Postiglione, general director of Health Protection and coordination of SSR Campania; Ugo Trama, director of the UOD Drug and Device Policies - Permanent Regional Technical Table on drugs; Professors Maria Triassi, president of the School of Medicine and Surgery of Federico II, and Mario Delfino, councilor of the Order of Physicians of Naples and Province; Fiore Manganelli, full professor of Neurology Federico II; Francesco Habetswallner, director of the UOC Neurophysiology AORNA Cardarelli; Paolo Barone, full professor of Neurology at the University of Salerno; doctors Vincenzo Andreone, director of the stroke unit Neurology of Cardarelli; Giuseppe Galano director of the UOC Territorial Operations Center 118; Antonio Corcione, director of Resuscitation Azienda dei Colli.

“In the Campania region we are trying to intensify collaboration with healthcare professionals and patient associations, to outline the most appropriate strategies and pathways so as to guarantee the best and most efficient assistance, based on the different pathologies, in particular those that are time-dependent, where timeliness is an essential component for assistance, such as convulsive symptoms”, declares Ugo Trama, director of the regional UOD for drug policies.

“Convulsive diseases are not only chronic pathologies but are also at the origin of emergency situations – explains Maria Triassi, president of the Federico II School of Medicine – The Emergency Room is therefore a fundamental piece, also for our university structure whose function of training future healthcare professionals without an emergency department is inevitably incomplete since emergency is an indispensable requirement for degree courses and specialization schools''.

"It is essential that in a territorial emergency, convulsive symptoms are included in an adequate network pathway, just like other time-dependent pathologies.i – explains the doctor Giuseppe Galano, director of the Territorial Operations Centre 118 – If not addressed in a timely, effective and competent manner, and with clear and shared guidelines, it is not possible to obtain the necessary results of good care".