First Application of Ketogenic Diet on a Child With Intractable Epilepsy in Ghana

Abstract

The prevalence of epilepsy in sub-Saharan Africa is higher than in other parts of the world, but it is short of the effective measure on treating intractable epilepsy. Epilepsy surgery is not easy to be performed due to the high cost and demand of operational skills. The authors planned to perform ketogenic diet therapy for the children with intractable epilepsy in Ghana with regard to its low cost and simple procedure. The candidate is a 10-month-old girl with epilepsy with unknown etiology. Her seizures couldn’t be controlled by more than 3 antiepileptic drugs. Her development delayed severely due to frequent seizures. The authors successfully applied ketogenic diet for her. Her seizures were completely controlled after 2 weeks’ therapy. Her mental condition was improved after that. The authors get much experience from this case for further developing ketogenic diet in Africa. This is the first report that ketogenic diet was applied to control intractable epilepsy in West Africa.