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Clinical Trial of Light Therapy for Epilepsy

University College London (UCL) logo

University College London (UCL)

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Epilepsy

Treatments

Other: Light Therapy
Other: 100 lux

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01028456
09 H0716 68

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study is designed to investigate whether light therapy may be an effective treatment for some people with epilepsy. Light treatment is already an established treatment for depression. The chemical systems in the brain that are disrupted when someone becomes depressed, overlap with some of those that can be affected during some epileptic seizures. The investigators have designed this study to see whether light therapy may also lead to a decrease in seizures in people who have epilepsy.

The study will be a placebo controlled trial. This means that half of the participants will receive a therapeutic dose of light therapy from a light box, whilst the other half will only receive a placebo light treatment.

Full description

The aim of this study is to investigate a new, non invasive treatment for epilepsy that may be useful as an adjunctive therapy for people whose seizures are poorly controlled with anti epileptic drugs. Light therapy is a well established treatment for some forms of depression. From the cellular level to epidemiological studies, there are numerous strands of evidence in the scientific literature that indicate that light therapy could be also an effective treatment for some people with epilepsy.

The proposed study is a randomised placebo controlled trial of light therapy. One hundred people with medically refractory epilepsy will be recruited. Participants will be randomised to receive either therapeutic or placebo doses of light therapy from an identical device for 30 minutes a day during the treatment phase of the study. The statistical power of this study design is >90% to detect a 25% reduction in seizure frequency during the treatment phase. Although this therapeutic approach is more likely to be palliative than curative, it represents a non invasive and relatively inexpensive add-on treatment option for a sub group of patients who may have reached the end of the road in other medical and surgical treatment options.

Enrollment

100 estimated patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 65 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Adult
  • Medically intractable epilepsy
  • Min 4 complex partial seizures/ month

Exclusion criteria

  • Ability to give informed consent
  • Underlying progressive neurological condition

Trial design

Primary purpose

Treatment

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

Double Blind

100 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

100 lux
Placebo Comparator group
Description:
100 lux / 30 minutes day
Treatment:
Other: 100 lux
Light Therapy 10,000 lux
Experimental group
Description:
10,000 lux / 30 minutes a day for 3 months
Treatment:
Other: Light Therapy

Trial contacts and locations

1

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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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