Loading...
Individuals with epilepsy are at increased risk for drowning, but the exact risk is unclear. To estimate the risk, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 51 cohort studies of death in epilepsy identified through a literature search and from national registries of deaths in England and Wales. They used person-years of follow-up (PYFU) to calculate standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) for all cohorts (observed rates vs. expected rates from general-population data).
Among the 51 cohorts, 88 drowning deaths occurred in people with epilepsy; comparison with an expected rate of 4.7 deaths yielded an SMR of 18.7. SMRs were higher for those with learning disabilities (25.7), with temporal lobe excisions (44.1), or in institutional care (96.9). The…