SHEILA WALLACE AWARD LECTURE: Dietary Therapies for Epilepsy in Low Resource Settings: Challenges and Successes

Suvasini Sharma, MD, DM
Lady Hardinge Medical College and Associated Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital
New Delhi, India

Course Description I have been working in the field of Dietary therapies of childhood epilepsy for the last 15 years. I will share my experience with the use of ketogenic diets and its modifications in India. I work in a low resource setting, and in a cultural milieu which is very unfamiliar with ketogenic diet. In this talk, I will discuss the challenges faced by pediatric neurologists and parents who wish to use the diet in children with refractory epilepsy; and how we have used simple low-cost innovations to overcome these challenges. We have evolved from the use of the classic ketogenic diet to the flexible use of the modified Atkins diet, which we have demonstrated to be efficacious in randomized controlled trials.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the problems faced in low resource settings, for prescribing and administering dietary therapies for refractory childhood epilepsy.
2. Learn strategies for low cost delivery of the diet in resource constrained and underprivileged populations. Impact Statements
3. Consider and offer the option of ketogenic diet if medically indicated, even in low socioeconomic populations, if the caregivers are motivated.
4. Use simple and flexible approaches to the use of the ketogenic diet for low resource settings.