Telemedicine in epilepsy management during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

Kikuchi, Kenjiro; Hamano, Shin-Ichiro; Horiguchi, Ayumi; Nonoyama, Hazuki; Hirata, Yuko; Matsuura, Ryuki; Koichihara, Reiko; Oka, Akira; Hirano, Daishi

BACKGROUND: Telemedicine has rapidly spread during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and shown its usefulness for patients with epilepsy compared to face-to-face visits. We sought to evaluate the clinical features of patients with childhood onset epilepsy associated with telemedicine consultations by telephone call during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We retrospectively investigated the medical records in patients with childhood onset epilepsy who visited an outpatient clinic in Saitama Children's Medical Center, Saitama, Japan from March 1st, 2020 to September 30th, 2020. To find the clinical features of patients who utilized telemedicine consultation by telephone call, we divided the patients into the following two groups: telemedicine group and face-to-face group. We then reviewed the following clinical features. Telemedicine consultation was not implemented for new patients. RESULTS: We enrolled 776 outpatients in total, and 294 patients (37.9%) utilized telemedicine consultations. The total number of visits were 2,299 and total number of telemedicine consultations were 373 (16.2%). There were no clinical features associated with telemedicine consultations except for age at onset of epilepsy. The number of oral antiepileptic drugs prescriptions decreased in overall 3.0% (23/776) of the patients who did not experience seizure deterioration, including status epilepticus, or who visited the emergency room. CONCLUSION: Telemedicine consultations were successfully utilized as an important tool for epilepsy treatment at outpatient clinic regardless of epilepsy type, etiology, seizure frequency, comorbidities, and patients' residential areas. Thus, telemedicine by telephone call may be a useful resource in management for patients with childhood onset epilepsy during the pandemic.