Fertility In Adolescents With Epilepsy

• Published in: Medicina Vol. 43; no. 4
• Main Authors: Mučić-Pucić, Branka, Škarpa-Prpić, Ingrid
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: Croatia Croatian Medical Association - Rijeka branch 13.07.2009
• Subjects: adolescencija; adolescency; epilepsija; epilepsy; reproduction; reprodukcija
• ISSN: 0025-7729

Progress in neuropediatrics, especially in pediatric epilepsy is advancing on a broad front, from new understandings of pathogenetic mechanisms to novel pharmacologic, surgical and nonsurgical various treatments.Because most epilepsy patients have epilepsy from childhood, these developments are relevant to both pediatric and adult neurologists. Even healthy adolescents have specific problems with adopting helathy life habits and life -styles (obesity, mental health, traffic traumas, suicide attempts, abuse of recreational drugs and alcohol which later result in asocial behaviour, and especially teenager pregnancies which are in constant uprise, together with sexually transmitted diseases. The burden of chronic illness in adolescence is increasing in all developed countries, because all chronically ill patients live through their teens until their twenties. This is the time in their lives when young people at the same time have to make serious decisions- the choice of employment, relationships within the family and friends, issue of sexuality, contaception and the ever present question - whether to discontinue the antiepileptic therapy or not. Recent attention has focused on the importance, but inadequacy, of adolescent medicine and the paucity od medical services for this specific population.Adolescence is in itself, a difficult and traumatic time, when complicated by epilepsy it poses a great challenge not only to the young people themselves, but also to their carers and physicians.