Best clinical and research practice in adult epileptology

To properly address the psychosocial health of people with epilepsy, service and resource allocation, standards of care, and research should reflect the differing needs of patients presenting at different care levels and in different parts of the world. Ideally, people with epilepsy should have access, according to need, to adequately trained primary care physicians and nurse practitioners; to dedicated secondary care epilepsy clinics staffed by trained multidisciplinary teams; and to tertiary level dedicated staff, able to offer a range of psychosocial interventions and supported by comprehensive assessment tools for psychosocial screening, diagnosis, and management. Established protocols linking the various tiers of care would be important, as would a dedicated, nationally applicable online EMR system. In developing countries, best practice needs to be tailored to be realistic and achievable, and some potentially useful models are already available.