Chapter Name: Iran
Report By: Mahmoud Motamedi

Publications:

None

Summary of Activities:

Since our chapter was officially recognized in September 2017, we have established headquarters in the Iranian neurological association and our website is set up (http://iranilae.org/). Apart from the core committee including the five constituent members, we have enrolled 86 united members that are mainly adult and pediatric neurologists and epileptologists.

Through several meetings the vision and missions for the upcoming year were determined. Our priorities were to firstly, announce the chapter nationwide and recruit members and secondly, develop national epilepsy guidelines with collaboration of the ministry of health that covers the epilepsy management and diagnostic investigation protocols, thirdly, to hold international and local epilepsy congresses and workshops.

In order to achieve our goals, we reached out to the ministry of health officials and convinced them that the current official epilepsy guidelines were mostly nonexistent or incompetent and therefore, needed to be updated or adapted according to national circumstances. Fortunately, the ministry appreciated our cause and three taskforces were made including epilepsy guideline adaptation, standard of care protocol, new epilepsy drug registry and implementation. Three workshops were held to train the taskforce members. Each task force consists of 20 academic united members that are currently involved in the process.

The 14th international Epilepsy Congress of Iran was held in February 2018 in Isfahan for three days exclusively on epilepsy.

The 24th international Congress of Neurology & Clinical Electrophysiology of Iran was held in Tehran in May 2018, with a six-hour epilepsy teaching course and workshop.

Brain and mood day conference was held in Tehran in December 2018 with collaboration of our chapter and the neurology, psychiatry and epilepsy associations.

Several local epilepsy workshops were also held in Tehran, Tabriz, Mashhad, Karaj and Isfahan.

Four tertiary epilepsy referral centers are operating in the country and three epilepsy fellowship programs trained four epileptologists in 2018.

Challenges:

Unfortunately due to current economic sanctions on Iran, there is a shortage of medicine and medical instruments and accessories that has affected the epilepsy care in the country. Moreover, we should reschedule some of our deadlines due to the economic considerations. Despite these shortcomings, we are truly optimistic that we can improve the epilepsy care in our country and step towards our goals with international cooperation.

Future Plans:

1- national epilepsy registry
2- Iranian epilepsy journal
3- regional epilepsy schools
4- general assembly meeting and election

Officer Election Date: We have not yet had an election.