sudden reduction

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a fatal complication of epilepsy. It is defined as the sudden and unexpected, non-traumatic and non-drowning death of a person with epilepsy, without a toxicological or anatomical cause of death detected during the post-mortem examination.While the mechanisms underlying SUDEP are still poorly understood, it is possibly the most common cause of death as a result of complications from epilepsy, accounting for between 7.5 and 17% of all epilepsy-related deaths and 50% of all deaths in refractory epilepsy. The causes of SUDEP seem to be multifactorial and include respiratory, cardiac and cerebral factors as well as the severity of epilepsy and seizures. Proposed pathophysiological mechanisms include seizure-induced cardiac and respiratory arrests.Among epileptics, SUDEP occurs in about 1 in 1,000 adults and 1 in 4,500 children annually. Rates of death as a result of prolonged seizures (status epilepticus) are not classified as SUDEP.

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