Population-Based Assessment of the Long-Term Risk of Seizures in Survivors of Stroke

You'll have to bring this to your doctors attention if you are in this cohort; seizures occur in about 10% of stroke patients. 

Or maybe you want this:

Cannabidiol May Reduce Seizures by Half in Hard-to-treat Epilepsy

Or maybe the nasal spray referred to in here:

Preventing Seizure-Caused Damage to the Brain

The answers are out there, does your doctor know about them?

A dietary supplement dampens the brain hyperexcitability seen in seizures or epilepsy

Population-Based Assessment of the Long-Term Risk of Seizures in Survivors of Stroke  

Alexander E. Merkler, Gino Gialdini, Michael P. Lerario, Neal S. Parikh, Nicholas A. Morris, Benjamin Kummer, Lauren Dunn, Michael E. Reznik, Santosh B. Murthy, Babak B. Navi, Zachary M. Grinspan, Costantino Iadecola, Hooman Kamel

https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.117.020178

Stroke. 2018;49:1319-1324

Originally published April 25, 2018

This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.

---

Abstract

Background and Purpose—We sought to determine the long-term risk of seizures after stroke according to age, sex, race, and stroke subtype.

Methods—We performed a retrospective cohort study using administrative claims from 2 complementary patient data sets. First, we analyzed data from all emergency department visits and hospitalizations in California, Florida, and New York from 2005 to 2013. Second, we evaluated inpatient and outpatient claims from a nationally representative 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Our cohort consisted of all adults at the time of acute stroke hospitalization without a prior history of seizures. Our outcome was seizure occurring after hospital discharge for stroke. Poisson regression and demographic data were used to calculate age-, sex-, and race-standardized incidence rate ratios (IRR).

Results—Among 777 276 patients in the multistate cohort, the annual incidence of seizures was 1.68% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.67%–1.70%) after stroke versus 0.15% (95% CI, 0.15%–0.15%) among the general population (IRR, 7.3; 95% CI, 7.3–7.4). By 8 years, the cumulative rate of any emergency department visit or hospitalization for seizure was 9.27% (95% CI, 9.16%–9.38%) after stroke versus 1.21% (95% CI, 1.21%–1.22%) in the general population. Stroke was more strongly associated with a subsequent seizure among patients <65 years of age (IRR, 12.0; 95% CI, 11.9–12.2) than in patients ≥65 years of age (IRR, 5.5; 95% CI, 5.4–5.5) and in the multistate analysis, the association between stroke and seizure was stronger among nonwhite patients (IRR, 11.0; 95% CI, 10.8–11.2) than among white patients (IRR, 7.3; 95% CI, 7.2–7.4). Risks were especially elevated after intracerebral hemorrhage (IRR, 13.3; 95% CI, 13.0–13.6) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (IRR, 13.2; 95% CI, 12.8–13.7). Our study of Medicare beneficiaries confirmed these findings.

Conclusions—Almost 10% of patients with stroke will develop seizures within a decade. Hemorrhagic stroke, nonwhite race, and younger age seem to confer the greatest risk of developing seizures.