Charlotte Dravet

Charlotte Dravet (born July 14, 1936) is a French paediatric psychiatrist and epileptologist.

Charlotte Dravet
Born14 July 1936  (age 83)

After graduation at the University Aix-Marseille University Dravet trained in Pediatrics in Marseille from 1962–1965. She wrote her M.D. thesis on the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.[1] In 1971 she was certified as psychiatrist.

From 1965 to 2000 Charlotte Dravet specialized in Epilepsy at the Centre Saint Paul in Marseille, among others with Henri Gastaut, Joseph Roger, and René Soulayrol (pediatric psychiatry). She was the resident doctor and actually lived on the premises until her retirement in 2000. She thus had the opportunity, and also the dedication to accompany and observe inpatients day and night for many years, which resulted in some of her major contributions to epileptology. In 1972 she trained in the pediatric EEG Department of the Hôpital Saint-Vincent de Paul and in the Department of Functional Neurosurgery of the Hôpital Sainte-Anne in Paris. From 1989 to 2000 Dravet has been Associate Medical Director of the Centre Saint Paul.

With Joseph Roger and Michelle Bureau she played an active role in the delineation of epileptic syndromes through several workshops and the first edition of the book "Epileptic syndromes in infancy, childhood and adolescence". In 1981 she described together with Michelle Bureau the benign myoclonic epilepsy of infancy[2] and in 1978[3] as well as in 1982 the severe myoclonic epilepsy of childhood, the syndrome later on named after her (Dravet syndrome),[4] which was confirmed by subsequent genetic discoveries and became a model for the genetic childhood epilepsies.

From 1991 to 1993 Charlotte Dravet was a member of the Scientific Board of the French Foundation for Research on Epilepsy. From 1996 to 2004 she was a member of the Task Force on Classification and Terminology of the International League Against Epilepsy ILAE. From 1997 to 1999 she served as president of the French League Against Epilepsy (LFCE). In 2000 she organized the first National Epilepsy Day in France. From 2003 to 2006 she was a member of the Board of the French Comité National pour l’Épilepsie and she still is a member of the Scientific Board of the International Dravet syndrome Epilepsy Action League.

Since her retirement she has focused her activities on the Dravet syndrome. As Honorary Consultant she regularly attends the Childhood Epilepsy Unit at the Policlinico A. Gemelli of the Catholic University in Rome, Italy, where she sees patients with this severe epilepsy and, in collaboration with her Italian colleagues, coordinates research on their cognitive development.

Charlotte Dravet trained or helped train a vast number of epileptologists who came from all over the world to Marseille to learn about the epileptic syndromes of infancy and childhood, and enjoys a huge following of disciples. She is also a popular speaker about epilepsy and has spoken at numerous epilepsy meetings and workshops all around the world, not mentioning her frequent participation in events organised by nonprofessional organizations such as patients’ and parents’ associations worldwide.

Books
  • L’Enfant Épileptique. Le Comprendre et l’Aider, together with Pierre Jallon (Toulouse: Éditions Privat, 1985)
  • Les Syndromes Épileptiques de l’Enfant et de l’Adolescent, edited together with Joseph Roger, Michelle Bureau, Fritz E. Dreifuss, Peter Wolf, and others (London – Montrouge: J. Libbey, 1984, followed by an English edition in 1985; current edition: Epileptic Syndromes in Infancy, Childhood and Adolescence (Current Problems in Epilepsy, Vol 23), fifth edition, edited together with Michelle Bureau, Pierre Genton, Peter Wolf, and Carlo Alberto Tassinari (Montrouge, J. Libbey Eurotext, 2012)
  • La Prise en Charge Globale de l’Épilepsies. (Paris, Communications Globale Sant 2002)
  • Myoclonic Epilepsies (Advances in Neurology, Vol 95), edited together with Antonio V. Delgado-Escueta, Renzo Guerrini, Marco T. Medina, Pierre Genton, and Michelle Bureau (Philadelphia – Baltimore – New York, et al., Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2004)
  • Comprendre l’Épilepsie. Notions élémentaires sur l’épilepsie et les épilepsies (Dialogue Medecin-Malade). (Montrouge, J. Libbey Eurotext, 2006)
  • Dravet Syndrome (Topics in Epilepsy, Vol 3), together with Renzo Guerrini. (Montrouge – Esher, J. Libbey Eurotext, 2011)[5]

Awards and Honors

Charlotte Dravet is Honorary Member of several chapters of the ILAE. She has received many awards and prizes, among others she has been awarded as "Ambassador for Epilepsy" by the ILAE and the International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE) in 1989, with the European Epileptology Prize by the Commission on European Affairs (CEA) of the ILAE in 2004, and with the "Lifetime Achievement Award" by the ILAE and IBE in 2017. In 2011 she has been nominated Chevalier in the French Order of the Légion d'honneur.

References
  1. Dravet C. Encéphalopathie Épileptique de l’Enfant avec Pointe-onde lente diffuse (“petit mal variant”). Thesis, Marseille 1965
  2. Dravet C, Bureau M. L’épilepsie myoclonique bénignes due nourisson. Rev EEG Neurophysiol 1981; 11: 438–444
  3. Dravet C. Les épilepsies graves de l’enfant. Vie Med 1978; 8: 543–548
  4. Dravet C, Roger J, Bureau M, Dalla Bernardina B. Myoclonic epilepsies in childhood. In: Akimoto H, Kazamatsuri H, Seino M, Ward AA Jr, eds. The XIIIth Epilepsy International Symposium (Advances in Epileptology). New York, Raven Press 1982: 135–140
  5. Dravet, Charlotte; Guerrini, Renzo (2013-09-18). Dravet syndrome. John Libbey Eurotext. ISBN 978-2-7420-1231-2.
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