Plea to ease epilepsy driving ban

Safe to drive: Epileptic patients must be seizure-free

Epilepsy patients should not have to wait for a year after a seizure before they can get back behind the wheel, say researchers.

A study of drivers in Arizona found that returning to driving after three months rather than a year did not greatly increase the rate of seizure-related crashes.

In the UK, anyone who suffers a seizure - regardless of its severity - has to inform the vehicle licensing authorities, who will suspend the licence for at least a year.

The patient can reapply to start driving again after 12 months provided they remain seizure-free.

The effects of this can be severe, especially if they have a job which requires driving.

There is the suspicion that some patients are prepared to run the risk of a subsequent seizure while driving rather than inform the DVLA.

Questionable ban

However, there is some debate over whether such a long "ban" is medically required.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Maryland, US, were given the perfect opportunity to test this question when the state of Arizona decided to reduce the length of the prohibition to three months.

The team looked at the number of "seizure-related" crashes before and after the change.

They found that there was a small increase in such incidents - 11 more seizure-related crashes.

In the same period, the number of crashes related to other medical conditions also increased.

Dr Joseph Drazkowski, a neurologist who led the study, said: "Reducing the seizure-free interval from 12 to three months did not produce a significant increase in total crashes, crashes per mile and crashes per estimated driver with epilepsy."

Dr Allan Krumholtz, a neurologist from the Maryland Epilepsy Center, said that there was still a lack of good data to support any change in regulations.

He said that while a reduction might increase the risk to an individual epileptic driver, the culmulative risk to the public might be lessened because drivers who had not declared their illness might choose to come forward.