Stress-reducing techniques may help medication-resistant epilepsy patients experience fewer seizures, a randomized, controlled, double-blind study found.
Patients who performed muscle-relaxing exercises had 29% fewer seizures, while patients who engaged in focused-attention activity reduced seizures by 25%, reported Sheryl R. Haut, MD, of Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y., and colleagues in Neurology.
“Despite all the advances we have made with new drugs for epilepsy, at least one-third of people continue to have seizures, so new options are greatly needed,” Haut said in a statement. “Since stress is the most common seizure trigger reported by patients, research into reducing stress could be valuable.”