[E-health tools to overcome the gap in epilepsy care before, during and after COVID-19 pandemics].

Santos-Peyret, A; Durón, R M; Sebastián-Díaz, M A; Crail-Meléndez, D; Goméz-Ventura, S; Briceño-González, E; Rito, Y; Martínez-Juárez, I E

INTRODUCTION Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder that affects around 50 million worldwide and there is an abundance of literature on the health care gap for this sector of the population. This gap will increase with the current pandemic due to COVID-19. AIM To evaluate the current availability of digital health tools for the care of people with epilepsy according to the world medical literature and their use during said pandemic. DEVELOPMENT We reviewed the publications in scientific journals in the last decade that had as their main topic the use of digital health tools or telemedicine focused on the care of patients with epilepsy, including 4 months after the national quarantines due to the appearance of the virus SARS-CoV-2. Seventeen publications were found on the use of telemedicine focused on epilepsy. The most widely used tools internationally are online platforms, followed by mobile applications, videoconferences, epileptic seizure capture systems, checklists, algorithms for understanding medical data, phone calls, tele-encephalography and text messages. None was published during the COVID-19 current pandemic. CONCLUSIONS Although there is little literature on the use of digital health tools focused on epilepsy, there are several that can be used to fight the attention gap, especially in this global pandemic by COVID-19 that forces quarantines of people and communities for long periods. It is necessary to remove barriers and facilitate patient access to these new information technologies.