Practice of yoga might have a role as an adjuvant therapy in the management of autonomic dysfunction in patients with refractory epilepsy. Activation of the autonomic nervous system is well known in patients with epilepsy during either electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or spontaneous seizure. Inter-ictal and ictal epileptic activity may involve many areas of central autonomic network (CAN) and induce autonomic symptoms during seizures, potentially affecting autonomic cardiac control inter-ictally and ictally. it showed autonomic dysfunction in 56.3% of patients with chronic refractory epilepsy. Correlation of duration of illness with autonomic dysfunction was evident in this study, but AEDs did not show any significant role in autonomic functions. In a retrospective analysis of eight patients with absence epilepsy, transient increase in heart rate during inter-ictal discharge (IED) phase was noted. In another study at this center on drug-naïve new-onset 20 patients with epilepsy, subtle but definite cardiac autonomic dysfunction, especially in vagal tone, was identified.
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