About Us

ILAE-North America holds quarterly teleconferences and annual face-to-face meetings at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) annual meeting. Reports are provided annually to the ILAE executive, in accordance with ILAE stipulations for Regional Commissions, and annual updates are provided to each of the three constituent chapters (Canada, Jamaica, USA).

The Region’s overall goal is to improve the delivery of epilepsy care throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.

All task forces establish agendas with tangible deliverables and are encouraged to form work groups that include non-Region individuals as needed to achieve their goals. The agendas of all task forces are discussed and approved by ILAE-North America and the budget is assembled and submitted in accordance with these strategies. Task forces hold regular telephone conferences throughout the year, and meet face-to-face once a year usually at the AES meetings. Progress reports are given to ILAE-North America members at each of their meetings, and discussion of the reports inform further actions. By the nature of its goals and geography, ILAE-North America and its task forces work closely with other ILAE Commissions and Chapters, in particular with the Latin American Regional Commission, the ILAE Therapeutics Commission (Task Force for Epilepsy Surgery), and the Caribbean chapters.

Task Forces

To achieve its goals, ILAE-North America constituted the following task forces:

Global Health Task Force

We have established a Global Health Task Force is to advance epilepsy education and care internationally. The first step is to identify ongoing global health outreach projects in epilepsy (educational and clinical) conducted by individuals within the North American region, and to create a repository of these projects to foster communication, collaboration and pooling of resources to maximize our global impact. Additionally, the task force will collect data on the design of successful projects and also identify specific needs in various underserved regions to improve the design and impact of future projects.

NEW! Global Health in Epilepsy Project Database

The Global Health Task Force has just launched an initiative to identify and connect international projects aimed at reducing the global epilepsy treatment gap, and it is now accepting ongoing, completed, and upcoming projects.

The goals are to increase collaboration, amplify impact, reduce redundancy, engage possible funders, and identify service opportunities.

View Global Health Database and add your projects

Harmonization of Regulatory Activities

The goal of the Harmonization of Regulatory Activities Task Force is to monitor key ongoing issues related to approval of antiepileptic drugs with regulators including EMA, PMDA and possibly FDA. These include extrapolation of results in adults to children, use of AEDs in monotherapy, and shortening placebo exposure through time to event designs. A meeting will be held at the ECE in Vienna (Aug. 2018) with key task force members and regulators, followed by a symposium involving task force members and regulators.

Leadership Development Task Force

The Leadership Development Course, designed to train the next generation of ILAE leaders in essential skills, is held annually, alternating between the IEC and a regional congress.

Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Task Force

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Task Force is centred on strengthening the capacity of Caribbean countries to deliver evidence-based care to PWE within the framework of the PAHO Strategy and Plan of Action on Epilepsy. The TF aims to identify challenges and opportunities to improve access to care for PWE and to agree on key priorities for PAHO cooperation. This cooperation will address the significant healthcare disparities that exist across the English-speaking Caribbean region and the lack of advocacy and layperson involvement in most of the region.