Patient creates toolkit to educate others about seizures

Dylan suffers from partial-complex seizures, which affect her awareness and can cause her to lose consciousness. Because of that, she has been experiencing epileptic seizures for more than a decade.

"After facing a lot of discrimination, I realized that people have heard about epilepsy, but they have no idea what to do when they hear someone has epilepsy. I know firsthand telling people I have epilepsy, they immediately freak out. “That’s what inspired me to make this Epilepsy Toolkit. You’re going to have a student in your class or your school who has epilepsy and people don’t know how to handle it,” the innovator explained.

The severity of epileptic seizures vary by patient, so she wanted to find a way to help others understand what a seizure is and how they can help.

The epileptic toolkit has an information pamphlet, a stopwatch (so that someone can time the length of the seizure) and an audio device that provides instructions on what to do in the event of a seizure.

"The most important thing in this toolkit is a pamphlet that describes the common types of seizures, along with first aid instructions," said Di Girolamo.

The toolkit was entered into the IDeA competition hosted by Universities Canada. She placed second in the Attitudinal/Systemic Barriers category, taking home $1,500.

Each toolkit has a development cost of about $15, with the option of adding a teddy bear.

Dylan launched a crowdfunding campaign to help make this invention “a reality”.

Adapted from: https://bit.ly/2JW96vr

More info: https://www.gofundme.com/f/epilepsy-toolkit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Xx_gTo0P0