title: Objective measure of treatment outcome in epilepsy.
abstract: Treatment outcome in epilepsy is too often a vague, ill-defined subjective measure. Based on a proposal of Shoffer and Temkin (1987) of "time to kth seizure" as a measure of seizure frequency, we devised the formula: % improvement = 100 - [time to X seizure (i*) x 100]/ [time to X seizure (f*)]. This formula provides an objective measure of treatment outcome and should prove useful in clinical settings and research. We offer examples of practical applications of the formula.
authors.affiliation: Escuela Colombiana de Rehabilitación and Instituto Neurológico de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eslava-Cobos
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000145:classification / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D016896:Treatment Outcome