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Patients suffering from psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are slipping through the cracks of the medical system due to misdiagnosis, long waits for specialists and a lack of followup care, say two neurologists based at Royal University Hospital.

A University of Saskatchewan research team lead by neurologists Dr. Jose Téllez-Zenteno and Dr. Alexandra Carter recently published a paper finding that potentially around 2,000 patients in Saskatchewan, and 72,000 across Canada, may have been misdiagnosed as epileptic.

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Even though Canada’s medical system is well-equipped to diagnose psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), the condition is misdiagnosed about 40 per cent of the time as epilepsy, according to a U of S news release.

“This paper is not the opinion of only a few doctors,” Téllez-Zenteno said. “It’s the opinion of all the specialists in epilepsy across Canada.”