MOSES: An educational program for patients with epilepsy and their relatives

The knowledge of patients with epilepsy about their own condition is poor, and thus the need for educational programs for people with epilepsy has lon g been recognized. However, no such programs have been established in their routine care. The Modular Service Package Epilepsy (MOSES) now tries to fi ll this gap for patients in German-speaking countries. The program was deve loped by a multidisciplinary group (neurologists, nonmedical professional h elpers, and representatives of national epilepsy associations) for people w ith epilepsy older than 16 years, independent of the kind and severity of t heir epilepsy. MOSES is designed for group education and can be used in inp atient and outpatient settings in epilepsy centers, in clinics, and by neur ologists in private practice. The program aims to help patients achieve a b etter understanding of their disease, to gain more self-confidence, and to take over responsibility, thus supporting patients to become experts in man aging their own illness. Being modular in structure, MOSES includes nine un its: living with epilepsy, epidemiology, basic knowledge, diagnostics, ther apy, self-control, prognosis, psychosocial aspects, and network epilepsy. M OSES consists of a workout manual for patients and a trainer manual. For po tential trainers, special "train-the-trainer seminars" are offered and cons idered mandatory. About 400 patients have participated in a MOSES training program in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The efficacy of the program i s currently been evaluated.