Epilepsy

[Guest]

Hi

Have just found out that we may be admiting a child with epilepsy at OOSC. He apparently hasnt had a seizure for 2 years. What should we put in place? A specific care plan? Risk assessment?

 

Thanks

[HappyMaz]

Epilepsy Action have a good website. You can look here for advice for Education professionals.

[lashes2508]

Hi

Have just found out that we may be admiting a child with epilepsy at OOSC. He apparently hasnt had a seizure for 2 years. What should we put in place? A specific care plan? Risk assessment?

 

Thanks

 

Hi Marley,

I would suggest you do what you do for any other child with a medical condition, does the child need medication adminstered by you? make sure all staff are fully trained aware of what to do should he have a seizure, what type of seizures does he have ,does he have any warning , would you get any warning, regards risk asessment all I can suggest is that you need to check if his epilepsy is triggered by any environmental conditions , lights etc

I would emphasis the most important thing is to educate your team as much as posible , you cannot risk assess for epilepsy unless it is because if the things i mentioned above.

 

Hope that helps , remember epilepsy s a condition not a disability

[Guest]

Hi

Thanks. We have not been told much about the child only that he is epileptic and autistic but does not require 1:1. Will of course have to ensure that all staff are aware of how to care for him.

[Susan]

Hope that helps , remember epilepsy s a condition not a disability

 

Epilepsy is a disability recognised by the DDA.

 

You need to talk to the parents/cares and go from there.

 

It is unlikely that you would need to give medication but you should be aware that if he has a seizure, you should call an ambulance as his sizure pattern will be new to you.

 

 

You can also get info here.

[SLIMBRIDGE]

I have a little girl with epilepsy in my class. We have a care plan signed by Mum, a record sheet for any seizures and we also had training for the whole staff (including lunchtime supervisors) from a local nurse. She has had a few (partial) seizures but we have been abe to manage this in school. Its really important that all members of staff know what to do just in case.

[Guest]

Hi all

Thanks for all the info. Spoke to my boss at pre-school and she recommended this doc which seems to be very useful

Managing_Medicines_Nov_07_version.pdf

[thumperrabbit]

We too have a child with epilepsy, I was advised by Ofsted to have training from a nurse to administer any meds.

 

In our experience it is a nightmare to get nurses to come out though for any training, does anyone else find this?

[Tigger]

from another perspective I was diagnosed with Epilepsy last year. (Complex partial epilepsy so therefore not full myclonic seizures...I hope).

 

I have 3 risk assessments inside, outside, school trips ....

 

Yesterday we found out I was definatly light sensitive; fortunatly it was during another year groups performance that I had sneaked into and I was able to leave, however we will now not be able to have flash photography at our performances next week. A letter went out to parents on Friday stating 'someone with health issues' and hopefully we won't end up in the local or national newspapers!

 

This could also be an issue for any children with epilepsy although it is only a small percentage of people who are light sensitive.

 

S

[JacquieL]

I am sure you should be able to access training through the Health Visitor or epilepsy nurse. Perhaps mum has someone supporting her who could come in to talk to you? Certainly in a school setting a nurse would come in to train all the staff, just like they do with epipen training, and a plan put in place so that everyone is aware of what signs to look for and what to do if there is a problem. A risk assessment is also essential, and especially essential when going on trips. Computer screens may well be an issue as well. As this child is also diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum I would think that you will need to have some sort of action plan in place to meet this child's particular needs. I hope all goes well for you.

[Susan]

In my experience, as a parent, you are not likely to be get training on medicine training unless the epilepsy is severe--in which case I dount the child would be in a main stream setting. We were always advised to call an ambulance in the event of needing medication to stop a seizure.

[JacquieL]

It must be different in different places, as always as if we admitted a child with epilepsy, we had the epilepsy nurse come in and do an after school session on managing epilepsy. We didn't need to give medication because, as you say, that was down to calling an ambulance and the parent. Same with Epipen training, which was given every year that we had children needing one of these. Mind you that was a few years ago so no doubt the cuts will have had an effect.

[finleysmaid]

Epilepsy is a difficult one because it depends on the severity of attacks. It is quite possible to have children with epilepsy in a mainstream setting if the staff are well trained. medicine for epilepsy may need to be given VERY quickly (within 3 minutes) so relying on an ambulance will not be possible ..specialist training is essential if this is the case and insurers will need to be contacted. Marley i think i would get info from parents first (how severe, how often etc etc) then maybe contact the doctors/health visitors and try to get someone in to train ...do you have an OOS rep at the borough who deals with sen holiday clubs as this is how my daughter was trained. Care plan essential i would think.(good idea to have one for different situations or make sure those are covered on the care plan info)

[Guest]

Epilepsy is a difficult one because it depends on the severity of attacks. It is quite possible to have children with epilepsy in a mainstream setting if the staff are well trained. medicine for epilepsy may need to be given VERY quickly (within 3 minutes) so relying on an ambulance will not be possible .

 

 

I completely agree. We had a child who needed medication within 2 minutes of a seizure beginning so we had to be the ones to administer it. We all had basic training from a nurse (whole school) and a few of us had more specialist training as we were with him in the class. This was a child who hadn't had an attack for a year but the training was still essential. Also it's good to have medicine that stays on site, not one that goes home each night. Doctors are usually quite happy to prescribe an extra bottle for this purpose.

 

Personally I can't see any reason why a child with epilepsy wouldn't be in a mainstream setting, except in very extreme cases.