General Points of AED Prescribing

Medication choice is based on syndrome and every effort should be made to achieve a syndromal diagnosis as this has far reaching implications for prognosis and a successful choice of anticonvulsants.

• In general introduce drugs slowly as they are better tolerated.
• Ensure compliance before discontinuing a drug.
• Each drug must be given an adequate trial. A drug fails if it does not work at adequate dosage or there are adverse effects.
• To say a drug has failed it should be prescribed to the maximum recommended tolerated dose if possible or a level obtained showing it is in the higher normal range.
• Changing formulation or brand is not recommended due to the variability in bioavailability.

This page was created in March 2012. It was last reviewed in December 2017.