A New Method of Ketogenic Diet Training

Epilepsy News From: Monday, August 05, 2019

Ketogenic Diet Training Through Partnership with an Epilepsy Center

In an ideal world, all new ketogenic diet centers would have detailed, thorough, in-person training by a seasoned “veteran” ketogenic diet center. Dietitians and neurologists eager to use dietary therapy would partner with an existing center and either

  1. Travel to observe this program in action (Example from The Johns Hopkins Epilepsy Center)
    OR
  2. Sponsor the ketogenic team to come to them and their patients (Example from The Charlie Foundation)

Current available seminars and conferences for “keto training” were highlighted in the August 2017 issue of Keto News.

Unfortunately, there are times when this ideal training is not possible or feasible.

  • Some centers do not have the funds or resources to either travel or pay for a visit. This may be especially true for developing countries.
  • The days or weeks taken away from a busy clinical schedule involved for this training can also be prohibitive.

How can these potential centers be trained, therefore?

Video Course Created to Fill the Training Gap

The concept of an online, updated, video training course started several years ago as a project envisioned by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Task Force for Dietary Therapy. Funding to create this training, however, did not occur. For a short while it seemed like a project that would never happen.

Thankfully, Emma Williams and Matthew’s Friends charity stepped in 2 years ago and, along with Red Goat Productions, helped create a video course to help train ketogenic diet centers. Recorded live at the 2017 KetoCollege in East Grinstead, UK, the course includes 11 introductory lectures by myself, Dr. Helen Cross, Dr. Liz Neal, Dr. Anita Devlin, Dr. Mackzenie Cervenka, Jennifer Fabe RD, Susan Wood RD, and Emma Wiliams. The videos include the PowerPoint slides and interviews.

The course is currently available for viewing and located at matthewsfriends.org/ketotraining.

  • Healthcare professionals register and will be screened by Matthew’s Friends to ensure they are from a hospital team planning to use the diet for control of patients with epilepsy.
  • Registration is £150 for access to the videos and is discounted to £100 for centers from developing countries.
  • Although the course was sponsored by an educational grant from Vitaflo™, the expenses for the production require this small tax-deductible donation to help cover its creation, upkeep, and eventual (in 3-4 years) update.
  • There are also links to the annual KetoCollege UK training course as well as YouTube™ videos designed for parents considering starting the ketogenic diet.

If you participate in this course and have comments, either positive or negative, please let either myself or Ms. Emma Williams know!

Matthew's Friends Ketotraining
 

From matthewsfriends.org/ketotraining/ketocollege-online-tutorials-videos, accessed July 22, 2019, registration required

Authored by

Eric Kossoff MD

Reviewed by

Elaine Wirrell MD

Reviewed Date

Monday, August 05, 2019

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