Future development of a depot antiepileptic drug: What are the ethical implications?

Depot medications have been used for long-term treatment of many different medical conditions (schizophrenia, opioid addiction) and for prevention of pregnancy (birth control). In addition, proposals for depot medication for antidepressants have been made as a possible treatment for chronic depression. For the treatment of chronic epilepsy, there are currently no depot antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). However, there may be a role for them. Depot AEDs could improve medication adherence rates, thereby reducing the morbidity and mortality that are associated with ongoing seizures. This could help to reduce hospital costs for people with epilepsy. Potential patient populations that could benefit from a depot AED include patients with forgetfulness, socioeconomic barriers to access of daily oral medications, impaired gastric absorption or dysphagia, comorbid epilepsy and psychiatric disease, and personal preference to avoid the inconvenience of taking a medication daily or even multiple times per day. In this article, we review reasons to create a depot AED and the outcomes of doing so in the context of the pillars of bioethics: beneficence (to act in a patient's best interest), autonomy (to respect a patient as an individual and honor their preferences), nonmaleficence (to do no harm), and justice (to treat all persons fairly and equally).

Ethical Challenges in Acute Evaluation of Suspected Psychogenic Stroke Mimics.

Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) is administered to patients with suspected ischemic stroke to improve blood flow to the brain In rare cases, patients present with complaints of stroke symptoms that appear to be non-organic due to malingering, factitious disorder, or conversion disorder (psychogenic stroke mimics). Deciding whether or not to administer tPA to these patients can be challenging. The risk of hemorrhage after administration of tPA is low, but not zero. The ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence need to be weighed carefully in these situations. We present two cases of patients with suspected psychogenic stroke mimics to illustrate the ethical challenges faced in identifying and managing psychogenic stroke mimics. Further research is needed to demonstrate effective treatment strategies for patients with acute stroke symptoms of psychogenic etiology.

Eye position-dependent opsoclonus in mild traumatic brain injury.

Opsoclonus consists of bursts of involuntary, multidirectional, back-to-back saccades without an intersaccadic interval. We report a 60-year-old man with post-concussive headaches and disequilibrium who had small amplitude opsoclonus in left gaze, along with larger amplitude flutter during convergence. Examination was otherwise normal and brain MRI was unremarkable. Video-oculography demonstrated opsoclonus predominantly in left gaze and during pursuit in the left hemifield, which improved as post-concussive symptoms improved. Existing theories of opsoclonus mechanisms do not account for this eye position-dependence. We discuss theoretical mechanisms of this behavior, including possible dysfunction of frontal eye field and/or cerebellar vermis neurons; review ocular oscillations in traumatic brain injury; and consider the potential relationship between the larger amplitude flutter upon convergence and post-traumatic ocular oscillations.