Chapter Name: Capitulo Salvdoreño de la Liga Internacional Contra La Epilepsia (CASALICE)
Report By: Dr. Ovidio Solano Cabrera

Publications:

None

Summary of Activities:

The year 2020 represented a challenge for CASALICE to overcome everything achieved in the successful 2019, with the experiences learned in the 1st week of epilepsy, we were focusing our efforts on innovative activities for the promotion and education about epilepsy in our country . However, as is known to everyone, the COVID-19 pandemic came and shook all the foundations of our society and threw all our projects away.

But since crises are only an opportunity to reinvent ourselves, that was exactly what we did in our chapter and we began to optimize the resources we had and to adapt to new technologies to get our message across to society.

Knowledge Capsules:

Small video messages that lasted a few minutes and published on the Facebook page of "Patients with Epilepsy of El Salvador" which became a very helpful platform to reach patients and their families, as well as on the page of CASALICE Facebook, for our followers of the medical staff.
These capsules were a series of practical advice to be taken into account by patients and their families in the context of quarantine due to the pandemic. Topics such as: the relationship of epilepsy with Covid-19, when it was pertinent to consult an emergency room, depression and anxiety in patients with epilepsy, etc. were discussed.

Official Publications:

Articles were published in the virtual magazine "Life, Health and Family" of the Salvadoran Institute of Social Security, about epilepsy, its relationship with Covid-19 and what to do in a crisis, the latter was accompanied by an educational and instructive video that it was published on the institute's social networks.

Virtual Course of epilepsy, Conference on Epilepsy and Covid-19:
The update course on "Epilepsy in the first level of health care" is a course that since last year has been taught virtually to doctors from Social Security and the Ministry of Health, reaching more than 300 doctors until this day. The topics that are touched are those of diagnosis, definition, classification and treatment of epilepsy, as well as EEG and pediatric epilepsy. At the end of the course, students are certified with a continuing medical training diploma, endorsed by the teaching department of Social Security and CASALICE.

As part of the feedback of this course, at the end of this, a feedback is given (this time, Virtual) with practical clinical cases, where doctors have the opportunity to clarify their doubts and put what they have learned into practice. Thus, the topic of Epilepsy and its relationship with COVID -19 was also taught.

Teleconsultation at the Epilepsy Clinic:

The Epilepsy Clinic is a specialized consultation for epilepsy patients, unique in the country; It is located in the Specialties Hospital of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute (ISSS) and currently benefits more than 3,000 patients with this disease per year. Needless to say, the operation of this clinic was hampered by the pandemic and had to use technology to provide care; That as well as from August of this year Social Security launches its Telemedicine program and the epilepsy clinic is one of the pioneer specialties and spearhead in this modality. Currently it is applied to 25% of clinic patients with a view to increasing to 50%. In a recent study by the institution, it was found that the percentage of satisfaction with this new modality is 76% and almost 90% think that it should continue permanently and systematically.

Physicians and Patients Epilepsy Symposium:

Finally, virtual academic sessions were held for doctors that dealt with drug-resistant epilepsy, preoperative evaluation and epilepsy surgery, which was seen by several dozen colleagues on the network.

The patients also had their activity with the presentation of "What to do before an epileptic crisis" and "Epilepsy at school", which was generated by a series of questions from the audience, which were answered by our experts

Challenges:

• El Salvador is a country with a little more than 6 million inhabitants, with around 50 neurologists and only 2 adult epileptologists and 1 child for the entire population, so the work is abundant and the challenges are titanic.
• There are few economic and logistical resources.
• We will have to optimize our resources and efforts to achieve a greater reach in society in a virtual way

Future Plans:

1. Virtual discussions of clinical cases with experts (Epistaff): we intend to hold virtual meetings with specialist and non-specialist doctors to present interesting cases in epilespia with different topics, such as pediatrics, autoimmune epilepsy, etc. and establish a forum for colleagues to present their case problems and try to solve them together. 4 events are planned to be held this year.
2. Virtual group of patients and relatives:
   We will try to reorganize the group of patients with whom we had already been working for years, in a virtual way to establish a forum for discussion of different epilepsy topics, clarify doubts and answer questions from our medical experts. In addition to creating a common space for our patients to share their experiences. And finally we can raise awareness in the community about this disease. A virtual forum with patients is planned every 2 months.

Officer Election Date: At the end of this year (November) an assembly should be held in which a new CASALICE board of directors should be elected.