Employers should heed TUC epilepsy advice

摘要

The TUC has produced a guide for trade unionists on supporting members with epilepsy. The guide should also prove of equal value to employers. The guide's author, Kathy Bairstow, is a senior advice and information officer at Epilepsy Action, which campaigns and provides advice on the condition. There are over 600,000 people in the UK with epilepsy, of whom 70% can have their seizures controlled with the correct drug and dosage. "Uncontrolled seizures," explains the guide, "or even a single breakthrough seizure, can have a huge impact on a person's working life." The guide helps representatives and others at the workplace to recognise the different types of seizures and effects. There is, the guide advises, "more to epilepsy than having seizures": although a person's ability to work may be limited at the time of a seizure and during recovery, there may be longer lasting and more constant impacts on concentration, cognition and memory, as well as on anxiety, depression and isolation.