The Impact of Mindfulness Meditation in Veterans With Epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the fourth most common neurological disorder and affects people of all ages and about 25 % of those patients have medically intractable epilepsy. Since the traditional pharmaceutical and surgical approach is not always effective, this study intends to investigate a novel approach using mindfulness as adjunctive tool of treatment for veterans with epilepsy.

This study proposes a randomized, single-blinded pilot investigative trial to assess the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation. The measures outcomes include seizure frequency, number of ER visits, quality of life, depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sleep quality and alcohol use in patients with Epilepsy. The cohort group will be randomized in two groups, one is the group of patients getting mindful meditation weekly during 8 weeks compared to patients in the waiting list who have the desire to participate.

This is a randomized control trial of the impact of mindfulness meditation in patients with known diagnosis of epilepsy over the course of 2 years.

Participating physicians will recruit patients meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria who have been diagnosed and treated in the epilepsy clinic at the Miami Veteran hospital. Upon completion of screening and enrolment procedures study participants will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups using a randomized call-in system: Treatment with weekly sessions of mindfulness meditation for 8 weeks or placement in the waiting list.

Demographics will be obtained for both groups during the initial clinic visit. The epilepsy variable questionnaire will also be completed during the initial appointment in the epilepsy clinic (this will assess seizure frequency, number of ER visits 3 months prior, adherence to antiepileptic medications reviewing the electronic pharmacy log with dates of medication being dispensed at the Veteran Medical Center.

All patients will be scheduled to have an initial appointment with the clinical psychologist to fill out the complete a battery of questionnaires including: Quality of life inventory in epilepsy (QOLIE-31), alcohol use disorder identification test (AUDIT), Beck depression inventory (BDI-II), Beck anxiety inventory (BAI), drug abuse screening test (dast-10), Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Insomnia severity, patient health questionnaires (PHQ), Post traumatic

The patients who do not initially receive mindfulness meditation will continue to receive standard of care and will be placed in a second phase of randomization where they will have a chance to once again be randomized to one of the groups.

This process will continue until a total of at least 40 patients has been recruited. After the recruitment has been completed, the remainder of the patients will be given the opportunity to participate in mindfulness medication if they so desire.

The hypothesis is that mindfulness meditation group will have more favorable outcomes than patients in the waitlist group in terms of the primary outcome of reduction in seizure frequency and secondary outcomes including number of ER visits, improvement in quality of life, decreasing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and/or PTSD, improvement in sleep quality, and decreased alcohol use.

Physicians will be blinded to which group patients are assigned during data collection. All of the participants will have a weekly clinic note titled Psychology Note in the clinic MIA MH PSYCHOL MINDFUL GRP. The notes will document the session if patient is in the mindfulness meditation group or will document that the patient remains on the waiting list. The physicians will not access these notes and will remain blinded to the patient assignment and upon completion of the study the data will be de-identified and analyzed by the statistician.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

1. Diagnosis of epilepsy, according to the using the 2014 International League Against Epilepsy criteria
2. Adults over the age of 18
3. Willingness to participate in mindfulness meditation sessions weekly for 8 weeks
4. Being able to read at a 6th grade level.
5. Being able to understand the study, consent form, and guided instructions during mindfulness meditation.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Having an isolated diagnosis of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.
2. Having a diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder previously known as dementia which would make the patient unable to follow guided instructions during mindfulness meditation.