Current status of epilepsy in Malaysia and way ahead

Epilepsy is the third most common neurological disorder, following stroke and Alzheimer’s disease with the highest frequency of newly identified cases occurring among children and adults. About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly 80% of epilepsy occur in developing countries including Malaysia. In Malaysia, epilepsy is still a highly misunderstood and a number of studies explored the poor understanding of the illness. Epilepsy patients have the serious impact on quality of life. Both individuals and families of the patients have an appalling experience. Another factor is cost of AEDs which is very high. It is a burden for both patients and their families to meet the costs. There is a significant need persists to develop an accessible, cost effective, efficacious and less toxic antiepileptic drugs. Natural products used in traditional herbal medicine can be an important source for the search of novel anti-epileptogenic compounds. A number of plants used in traditional medicine have shown to possess anticonvulsant activity. Malaysia is rich in medicinal plants. Attempts have been made in the past to explore the effectiveness of some medicinal plants for the treatment of epilepsy, but the rationale for selection of plants was not justifiable and hence they failed to get a hit. Some of the Malaysian plants are used by traditional healers in the treatment of epilepsy, but their therapeutic effectiveness is not being scientifically explored. This review focused to enlighten the status of epilepsy and research required for the Malaysian medicinal plants for the treatment of epilepsy.