University of Virginia Medical Center, Department of Neurology, P.O. Box 800394, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA. Electronic address: nbf2p@virginia.edu.
INTRODUCTION: There is scant evidence to quantify the risk of contact sports such as football to patients with epilepsy. This retrospective review was performed to evaluate the incidence of injuries or seizure exacerbation related to football participation in patients with epilepsy.
METHODS: Between the years 1994 and 2004, 157,709 consecutive clinic notes were searched for mention of "football" and "epilepsy" or "seizure". Resulting notes were reviewed to quantify the number of seizure exacerbations and the number of injuries in this cohort.
RESULTS: Seven of 44 subjects with epilepsy (15.9%) experienced injury while playing football. Four of 32 (12.5%) patients experienced seizure exacerbation during a time when they were concurrently participating in football though 3 of these patients stopped taking or were weaned off of their antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). One in 32 patients with epilepsy (3.1%) had an exacerbation of seizures while playing football and consistently taking AEDs.
CONCLUSION: The risk of injury and seizure exacerbation due to participation in football for patients with epilepsy is low. Clinicians should use their best judgment in deciding whether contact sports increase risks for a particular patient based on individual seizure frequency, concurrent neurological and medical issues, and medication adverse effects.