Be a part of the solution by supporting IAES with a donation today.


February 22, 2023 | by Catrina Hacker, PennNeuroKnow and IAES Collaboration
A message from IAES Blog Staff:
The staff at IAES is proud to present to all of you another wonderful article/blog from the amazing team at PennNeuroKnow. Since 2019 IAES has been extremely lucky to be in partnership with the PennNeuroKnow(PNK) team to help us all better understand complex medical issues related to AE and neurology in general. The talented PNK team continues to keep us up-to-date and help clarify the complexities we face each day along our AE journey, and we are eternally grateful! You can find out much more about this stellar group at: https://pennneuroknow.com/
As we wind up AE Awareness month 2023, I, for one, am grateful. Grateful for another year of stellar webinars and more information. For all the AE Warriors and our caregivers, we have a very optimistic future. As you have heard before, our road to recovery is no sprint, but it is a marathon we can and will complete. We receive questions all the time regarding the speed at which research proceeds and treatments are approved. And this is tough because although we know this is a marathon, we all truly want things to proceed much quicker. Catrina Hacker, a member of the amazing PNK team has done a wonderful job explaining the process. So, as I have heard said to me what seems like a million times, “trust the process” and we hope you enjoy this blog!
~Fellow Warrior and Editor-in-Chief, Jeri Gore
When you or someone you love is diagnosed with a disease like autoimmune encephalitis, the seemingly slow pace at which research progresses can feel frustrating. It’s hard to watch loved ones suffer while wondering why someone hasn’t used their knowledge and resources to find a solution that will make them feel better. In this post I will walk you through why the pace of research on diseases like autoimmune encephalitis can seem slow and what this means for scientific progress toward understanding autoimmune encephalitis.
One of the key reasons that biomedical research seems to progress slowly is that there is so much that we still don’t know. Our quest to understand the human body is much like the quest that European explorers once took to uncover the world beyond Western European countries: sometimes clumsy and a centuries-long process. Christopher Columbus’s crew famously stumbled upon North America on their way to India, and some of the earliest world maps were comically inaccurate by today’s standards (Figure 1 left). But over time the explorers made more observations and built new tools that ultimately led to the incredibly accurate and useful world maps that we have today (Figure 1 right).
Figure 1. Left: A world map generated in 1583. A lot of the general organization of the world has been figured out, but we now know that the proportions and specific shapes of individual continents aren’t correct. Right: A modern world map that shows how much our understanding of the organization of the world has grown in the last 400 years with detailed information about elevation across all 7 continents.
Today, biologists are still in the part of the journey where they’re constantly learning new things and updating their maps. Many biological discoveries still feel like the lucky discovery of the Americas by the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Making things even more difficult, the uncharted territory that biologists want to understand is even more complicated than the stable land masses of continents. Imagine trying to build a map of the world if small chunks of land moved around and interacted with each other in complicated ways. Now imagine that each explorer had to study a slightly different version of the world with small differences that made it unique, but that had the same general layout. That is the size of the challenge that biologists face when studying the human body.
The challenges of mapmaking for biologists go beyond just the fact that components of the maps move and interact. Biologists also have to build maps at different scales and understand how they relate to one another. Consider understanding the brain as an example. Some neuroscientists study how molecules inside individual brain cells work, others study how small groups of cells connect and send signals between each other, others study how large groups of cells send signals across the brain, and still others study how these signals relate to someone’s behavior or symptoms. Even neuroscientists studying things at the same scale often use different tools that make relating their discoveries to someone else’s challenging. As neuroscientists build maps at each of these levels it’s not always obvious how each map relates to the others and connecting the maps can be just as difficult as building them.
Understanding how a healthy human body works is hard enough but extending that understanding to figure out how to treat and cure diseases is even more complicated. When it comes to diseases, many different things can go wrong but produce the same symptoms. And oftentimes when one thing goes wrong, it causes a cascade of other things to go wrong as well. This makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong first to try to target that for treatment.
Autoimmune encephalitis is a good example of this kind of complexity. There are many different subtypes of autoimmune encephalitis that result from an immune response to several different kinds of proteins found in the brain. Despite being caused by reactions to different proteins, several subtypes have overlapping symptoms. On the other hand, each subtype is typically associated with several distinct symptoms that are all part of the same diagnosis. On top of that, each individual patient is different even before they get sick, so they will have a slightly different experience of their disease.
One thing this diversity can make difficult is deciding which patients to group together and which to consider separately. Should researchers group patients by their symptoms (e.g., fatigue, motor deficits, headaches) or by biological markers (e.g., testing for things in the blood or cerebrospinal fluid)? * Scientists’ answer to that question is constantly evolving as they learn more about patients with different kinds of autoimmune encephalitis. Until they know enough to separate subgroups of patients, it can be difficult to see through the diversity of symptoms and biological markers toward a clear understanding of exactly what’s going on.
All of these things only become more difficult the rarer a disease is. The more patients with a certain disease that can be studied, the more data points scientists have to work with. This can give them a better sense of the big picture, despite variability between individual patients. This is why the subtypes of autoimmune encephalitis that are most common, like Anti-NMDAR encephalitis, tend to be better understood than rarer subtypes. When there are more diagnosed patients, the disease is easier to study.
*For a deeper dive into this issue, Penn NeuroKnow writer, Margaret Gardner, wrote about how the same problem impacts our ability to study psychiatric disorders in this PNK article.
There are also practical components of how research is conducted that contribute to its slow and steady pace. Research needs to be funded and that is typically done through federal grants from organizations like the National Institute of Health (NIH). Grant funding is competitive, and researchers can spend months working on a proposal before submitting a grant. Once submitted, the grant undergoes rigorous review by other scientists. These reviewers are looking to fund science that they think will be successful, so this means that the best proposals aim to take small and manageable steps in our understanding based on past research. After review, many grants are rejected. So, scientists often have to shake off the disappointment, consider the reviewer feedback, and write an updated proposal. And, as it turns out, getting funding is only half the battle. Once a grant is funded and the project can begin, it takes time to train students and lab workers in the skills needed to conduct the research. Sometimes scientists even have to invent new technology to collect or analyze their data because they’re trying to do something that’s never been done before.
Once scientists have their first set of results, these results often lead to new questions that need to be answered. So, scientists must do many follow-up experiments to understand what’s going on before they can feel confident adding their new discovery to the map of the human body. Once they think they know what’s going on, they then need to replicate their results several times to be sure that what they’re studying is generally true and not specific to whatever patient, animal, or dish of cells they ran their first experiment on. After that scientists will spend months putting their results together into a paper which is then reviewed by other scientists who might ask for more experiments or analyses to make their results more convincing. Finally, the paper is published, and that project can be considered complete. A lot of biomedical research is done by first studying cells in a dish, then studying animal models, and then testing treatments in humans. Each step of this process requires scientists to go through the same process of getting funding, verifying their results, and eventually publishing their work.
While all of these steps contribute to the seemingly slow pace of science, they’re also beneficial to scientific progress. Doing many follow-up experiments, replicating results, and incorporating feedback from other scientists means that once a paper is published scientists can be pretty sure that everything in the paper is accurate. This is important because if scientists couldn’t believe most things that are published then they wouldn’t know what foundation to build on when they design new experiments. Such rigorous requirements for publishing research also help to keep patients safe. Ultimately, the goal is that everything we learn from these papers can be used to develop a treatment or a cure for a disease, which means using that knowledge to help human patients. Once scientists know enough to think about possible treatments, scientists and doctors work together to test these treatments in human patients through a process called clinical trials. Doctors and scientists need to be certain of as much as they can so that those treatments are safe.
While there’s plenty left to learn about autoimmune encephalitis and thinking about that can feel daunting, it’s important to celebrate that we’ve learned a lot already. Successful treatments that work for many people have already been developed, and treatments are only getting better. An increasing understanding of what autoimmune encephalitis is and how to treat it has also led to the creation of research centers, like the Center of Autoimmune Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, that make researching the disease and connecting patients and doctors easier. Centralized organizations like the International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society also help raise awareness about these issues and facilitate connections between patients, doctors, and researchers that continue to push our understanding forward.
Altogether, there are a lot of reasons to feel optimistic about the future and to trust in the system of slow and steady scientific research that has already delivered trustworthy, safe treatment options.
Image Credits
Cover photo: Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash.
Figure 1: Left: Girolamo Porro,, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Right: © OpenStreetMap-Mitwirkende, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
On June 16 th, 2022, Tabitha Orth, President and Founder of International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society officially became the 7,315 th “point of light”. Recognized for the volunteer work she and IAES has done to spark change and improve the world for those touched by Autoimmune Encephalitis. The award was founded by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Become an Advocate by sharing your story. It may result in accurate diagnosis for someone suffering right now who is yet to be correctly identified. Submit your story with two photos to IAES@autoimmune-encephalitis.org
International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society (IAES), home of the AEWarrior®, is the only Family/Patient-centered organization that assists members from getting a diagnosis through to recovery and the many challenges experienced in their journey. Your donations are greatly appreciated and are the direct result of IAES’ ability to develop the first product in the world to address the needs of patients, Autoimmune Encephalitis Trivia Playing Cards. Every dollar raised allows us to raise awareness and personally help Patients, Families, and Caregivers through their Journey with AE to ensure that the best outcomes can be reached. Your contribution to our mission will help save lives and improve the quality of life for those impacted by AE.
December 28, 2022 | by Sophie Liebergall, PennNeuroKnow and IAES Collaboration
A message from IAES Blog Staff:
The staff at IAES is proud to present to all of you another wonderful article/blog from the amazing team at PennNeuroKnow. Since 2019 IAES has been extremely lucky to be in partnership with the PennNeuroKnow(PNK) team to help us all better understand complex medical issues related to AE and neurology in general. The talented PNK team continues to keep us up-to-date and help clarify the complexities we face each day along our AE journey, and we are eternally grateful! You can find out much more about this stellar group at: https://pennneuroknow.com/
——
Receiving a diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis can be a stressful and uncertain time for many patients and their families. And to make it even more confusing, doctors often don’t just give patients a diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis, but rather anti-NMDAR or anti-Hu or anti-GABAA encephalitis. There are many different types and subtypes of autoimmune encephalitis that can have distinct symptoms, underlying causes, and responses to treatment.1However, the terminology that doctors use to refer to these different subtypes is complex and can sometimes feel like wading into a bowl of alphabet soup! Here, we will try to break down some of the ways that doctors distinguish types of autoimmune encephalitis to help patients and their families make sense of this complicated and rapidly evolving field.
Before we break down the different types of autoimmune encephalitis, it is important to understand what autoimmune encephalitis is. What do doctors mean when they use the term autoimmune encephalitis? The suffix -itis can be applied to any part of the body to describe an inflammatory state. So, when -itis is added to the end of the word encephalon (which is the ancient Greek word for inside the head), it means inflammation of the brain. Therefore, encephalitis is a word that describes any sort of inflammation in the brain.
But what exactly is inflammation? What does it mean when a part of the body is inflamed? Inflammation occurs when the body’s immune system is activated.2 Typically, the immune system is activated when there are invaders in the body, such as bacteria or viruses. Once the immune system is alerted to the presence of this invader, it tries to eliminate the invader using a variety of different weapons. Some of the weapons that the immune system uses are called antibodies.3Antibodies act as signals for the immune system so that it knows where to direct its attack. One battalion of the immune system’s cell soldiers makes antibodies that specifically stick to the target. Then, the immune system sends another battalion of cell soldiers to eliminate the target that has been flagged by the antibody.
Even though the immune system’s main job is to mount attacks against invaders like bacteria and viruses, things can go wrong in the fog of biological warfare. Sometimes the immune system accidentally mounts an attack against healthy proteins in a person’s body. When the body’s immune system targets itself, it can result in what is called an autoimmune process (from combining auto-, meaning self, and -immune, as in the immune system).
Now we can put all of these terms together! When the body’s immune system accidentally targets healthy proteins in a person’s brain, resulting in inflammation in the brain, it is called autoimmune encephalitis.4
It is important to note that when the body mounts an autoimmune attack against the brain, it isn’t trying to target everyhealthy protein in the brain. Rather, it’s generally trying to target specific proteins that are found in the brain. When the immune system attacks these proteins, it can damage the proteins and the cells in which they are found. As a result, the type of autoimmune encephalitis and the symptoms associated with that autoimmune encephalitis are based on the type of protein that is targeted for attack by the immune system.5
Though we are still relatively early in our understanding of how the brain works, we do know that different regions of the brain control different brain functions. For example, some areas of the brain are dedicated to controlling movement, whereas others are dedicated to processing sensory stimuli. One way in which these different regions of the brain are distinct is that their brain cells can contain different proteins. This means that when the immune system mounts an attack against a protein in the brain, this attack is targeted to the regions in the brain where that protein is found. Therefore, the distinct types of autoimmune encephalitis target different regions in the brain and may affect different brain functions.1
Doctors will sometimes describe a patient’s encephalitis based on which part of the brain they suspect is being attacked. Some common terms that you may hear a doctor use to describe autoimmune encephalitis include:
Another way that doctors distinguish between the types of autoimmune encephalitis is by using the terms paraneoplastic vs. non-paraneoplastic encephalitis. In paraneoplastic autoimmune encephalitides, the reason that the patient’s immune system is attacking their brain is because they have a tumor somewhere in their body.13 A tumor, which is a growth of abnormal cells, can be one of the most common causes of autoimmune encephalitis. This is because the abnormal cells in a tumor can sometimes do strange things to proteins normally found in the brain. For example, tumor cells can place a protein that is normally supposed to be inside of the cell on the outside of the cell, or they can begin to make a brain protein in a different part of the body where it is not normally supposed to be made. This can confuse the immune system, which causes it to attack a normal brain protein that it would otherwise leave alone.9
In contrast to these cases of paraneoplastic encephalitis, non-paraneoplastic autoimmune encephalitis occurs when there is an autoimmune encephalitis but doctors can’t find a tumor anywhere in the person’s body.1 In these cases, what is causing the immune system to all of a sudden decide to attack a healthy protein in the brain is less clear. The cause of cases of non-paraneoplastic autoimmune encephalitis is the subject of ongoing and future research by many doctors and scientists.
Perhaps the most specific way in which doctors can distinguish between different types of autoimmune encephalitis is by determining exactly which protein in the brain is being targeted. As discussed above, when the immune system mounts an attack against its target, it makes antibodies to specifically flag this target. These antibodies circulate in the blood and/or the fluid that bathes the brain. Therefore, if doctors can collect these antibodies, they can provide a clue about which protein the immune system is targeting.
As doctors and scientists have identified more antibodies involved in autoimmune encephalitis, they have started to name these types of autoimmune encephalitis after the antibody that is present. For example, one of the most common forms of autoimmune encephalitis is caused by the body mounting an attack against the NMDA receptor, which is a protein found on the surface of many cells in the brain.10 These antibodies against the NMDA receptor are called “anti-NMDA receptor antibodies” so these patients are said to have “anti-NMDA receptor autoimmune encephalitis.” Some of the most common types of autoimmune encephalitis that are named based on the antibody found against their protein target are listed in the table below.
Antibody | % of Cases with Presence of Tumor | Common symptoms |
Anti-NMDAR | 40% (varies) | Limbic encephalitis, psychosis, repetitive movements, unstable blood pressure and heart rate, decreased breathing, seizures |
Anti-AMPAR | 70% | Limbic encephalitis |
Anti-GABAA |
| Severe, prolonged seizures |
Anti-GABAB | 70% | Limbic encephalitis, frequent seizures |
Anti-Caspr2 | 40% | Limbic encephalitis, confusion, abnormal muscle tone |
Anti-LGI1 | <10% | Limbic encephalitis, seizures |
Anti-Hu | >90% | Limbic encephalitis, problems with cognition |
Anti-Ma2 | >90% | Limbic encephalitis, brainstem encephalitis |
Anti-CV2/CRMP5 | >90% | Limbic encephalitis |
Anti-Amphiphysin | >90% | Limbic encephalitis, widespread paralysis |
Table Caption: Different antibodies that are found in patients with autoimmune encephalitis are associated with distinct symptoms and the likelihood that the disease is a result of having a tumor somehwere in the body. Adapted from Davis & Dalmau – Autoimmunity, seizures & status epilepticus (2013).11
In some patients doctors are unable to find an antibody that is known to be associated with autoimmune encephalitis, even if the doctor is pretty sure that the patient’s symptoms are caused by an autoimmune encephalitis. This might be because either the patient’s immune system is not making an antibody, or that doctors don’t yet have a laboratory test that is capable of identifying an antibody associated with that patient’s disease. These cases of autoimmune encephalitis are said to be seronegative.12 Doctors and scientists are still looking to identify new proteins and antibodies that are associated with autoimmune encephalitis in hopes of providing a more specific diagnosis for patients who would have previously been thought to have seronegative autoimmune encephalitis.
It is important to remember that autoimmune encephalitis can look different in every patient. For example, one patient may be diagnosed with anti-NMDA encephalitis after she has multiple seizures and is found to have an ovarian tumor. Whereas another patient may be diagnosed with anti-NMDA encephalitis after he has dramatic changes in his personality and memory, but doctors are not able to find a tumor. Nevertheless, breaking down a disease into distinct boxes can help guide doctors in their diagnostic and treatment decisions for an individual patient. And a greater understanding of the subtypes and causes of autoimmune encephalitis may be crucial for developing more targeted and effective treatments for this uniquely challenging disease.
References:
On June 16 th, 2022, Tabitha Orth, President and Founder of International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society officially became the 7,315 th “point of light”. Recognized for the volunteer work she and IAES has done to spark change and improve the world for those touched by Autoimmune Encephalitis. The award was founded by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Become an Advocate by sharing your story. It may result in accurate diagnosis for someone suffering right now who is yet to be correctly identified. Submit your story with two photos to IAES@autoimmune-encephalitis.org
International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society (IAES), home of the AEWarrior®, is the only Family/Patient-centered organization that assists members from getting a diagnosis through to recovery and the many challenges experienced in their journey. Your donations are greatly appreciated and are the direct result of IAES’ ability to develop the first product in the world to address the needs of patients, Autoimmune Encephalitis Trivia Playing Cards. Every dollar raised allows us to raise awareness and personally help Patients, Families, and Caregivers through their Journey with AE to ensure that the best outcomes can be reached. Your contribution to our mission will help save lives and improve the quality of life for those impacted by AE.
December 7, 2022 | by Kara McGaughey, PennNeuroKnow
A message from IAES Blog Staff:
The staff at IAES is proud to present to all of you another wonderful article/blog from the amazing team at PennNeuroKnow. Since 2019 IAES has been extremely lucky to be in partnership with the PennNeuroKnow(PNK) team to help us all better understand complex medical issues related to AE and neurology in general. The talented PNK team continues to keep us up-to-date and help clarify the complexities we face each day along our AE journey, and we are eternally grateful! You can find out much more about this stellar group at: https://pennneuroknow.com/
——
The holy grail! The million-dollar question! How long will it take to get rid of AE, to heal from AE…when will we feel and act ‘normal’ again? Why do we not understand more of the healing process’ from a diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis?
Kara McGaughey and the team at PennNeuroKnow help us further understand just how complex and individual our brains are!
——
If you break a bone, your expectations about the healing process and how long it might last will vary depending on the nature and severity of the fracture. For example, a small fracture will come with a completely different timeline for recovery than a compound fracture (where the force of the break causes the bone to pierce through the skin).
Just like broken bones, no two cases of brain injury are exactly the same and the timeline of the healing process depends on the nature and severity of the injury. As such, when we consider healing from brain injuries, like autoimmune encephalitis (AE), the diversity of diagnoses and symptoms leads to a diversity of recovery trajectories, which can make navigating the healing process a confusing and isolating experience. Here, we dive into this diversity, exploring what healing from AE looks like, why the process takes so long, and why it varies so much.
“I felt like a robot controlling my body for the first time – speech, thought and movement all under shaky manual control. I felt like my brain was being reacquainted with my body.”
— Alexandrine Lawrie on AE recovery1
Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a collection of related conditions in which the body’s immune system produces antibodies that mistakenly attack the brain, causing inflammation. In order to begin the healing process, treatment is needed to shut down the overactive immune system, remove the antibodies mounting the attack, and reduce brain swelling.2-3 To accomplish this, doctors typically rely on a handful of treatments options:
Steroids, blood plasma exchange, intravenous immunoglobulin, or a combination of the three represent the most common defense against AE.2,4 These first-line treatments can be helpful for stopping the immune system’s attack on brain tissue and reducing inflammation. Corticosteroids, for example, reduce brain swelling by preventing the production of inflammatory proteins by immune cells. These steroids also help to restore the integrity of the blood-brain barrier, a protective lining that shields the brain from inflammatory cells and harmful antibodies that may be circulating in the bloodstream.5 In AE the blood-brain barrier can spring leaks, which allows antibodies from the bloodstream to penetrate the brain and wreak havoc.6 Closing up any leaks in the barrier that formed as a result of AE disease progression is a critical first step in the healing process.
However, recovery from AE can take time and is often not an abrupt rise and fall of symptoms (Figure 1, left). Instead, while many people do respond to available treatment options, the initial period of healing usually falls short of complete, giving way to a longer and more complicated recovery trajectory (Figure 1, center). For example, first-line therapies fail to resolve symptoms in about 50% of patients with AE, which means that additional and prolonged treatments are often required to suppress the immune system and give the brain an opportunity to repair and recover.4 In these cases, doctors turn to second-line therapies, like immunosuppressants. While having steroids on board promotes brain healing by stopping the leakage of antibodies from the bloodstream into the brain, immunosuppressants, like Rituximab, go after the cells that make the antibodies in the first place.5 When given long-term, Rituximab can be effective at reducing symptoms and keeping AE in remission.2,4
While therapies, like Rituximab, can be incredibly effective, outcomes are still highly variable. Because no two cases of AE are exactly the same, no two recovery trajectories are either (Figure 1, right). Both treatment options and outcomes often depend on details of the AE diagnosis, such as the type of antibody involved. For example, a recent study of 358 patients with AE demonstrated that people with anti-NMDAR antibodies, LGI1 antibodies, and CASPR2 antibodies respond differently to Rituximab immunotherapy.7 These groups of patients with AE caused by different antibodies not only reported differences in symptom relief, but they ultimately reached different levels of day-to-day independence. Nevertheless, regardless of treatment approach and AE diagnosis, early and aggressive therapy is consistently associated with better outcomes. This means that as diagnostic tools and treatments improve, more people with AE have the opportunity to heal.2
“Good, bad, up, down, round and round;
I feel as though I’m on a merry-go-round.
Full of uncertainty if it will ever stop spinning;
Full of frustration as I remain on my couch sitting.
It’s going to be alright; it’s going to be okay; I will continue the fight day to day.
I will keep the hope and learn to cope;
I will continue my way up this slippery slope with hopes of support and love of some sort.”
— Anonymous on living with AE8
Since people tend to differ in their response to AE treatments, they tend to recover at different paces. For some, AE symptoms decline steadily with continued immunotherapy, leading to recovery within a couple months. Others experience persistent relapses, leading to a recovery timeline on the order of years (Figure 1, right). Research studies show that most patients continue to improve 18 months to 2 years after starting treatment, but there are some people with AE who experience ongoing and life-changing symptoms.9
Similar to how some types of AE respond better or worse to particular treatments, AE diagnosis also affects the timeline of recovery and the risk of recurrence. A recent study followed up with AE patients 3, 6, and 12 months after starting treatment, assessing and comparing their symptoms using a measure of the degree of disability or dependence. Researchers and clinicians found that after three months, two thirds of patients with anti-LGI1 or CASPR2 antibodies recovered to “slight disability” compared to only 30% of patients with anti-NMDAR or other antibody-based AE.10
This persistence of symptoms among patients with anti-NMDAR vs. anti-LGI1 or CASPR2 AE may come from the fact that different AE antibodies carry different risks for relapse. For example, the risk of relapse within two years for anti-NMDAR AE is 12%.9 There are other AE diagnoses, like anti-AMPAR AE, where the relapse rate is even higher, pushing 50-60%.11 This increased risk of relapse is thought to stem from the fact that patients with anti-AMPAR AE often have psychiatric and memory dysfunction that make them less likely to keep up with medications. However, while it may be more prevalent for some types of AE than others, relapse is not a given. These same studies show that patients who receive (and continue) with first-line treatments have a lower risk of recurrence relative to untreated patients.11 Risk of relapse is further decreased in patients who have been given both first- and second-line therapies.5,9 This clear payoff of continued treatment suggests that as we continue to make improvements to AE therapies, there is potential for the percentage of patients reaching recovery to continue to increase.
All in all, vast differences in AE diagnoses and symptoms lead to lots of variability in treatment options, the healing process, and recovery timelines. This diversity of AE trajectories makes setting expectations for the healing process especially difficult. It also highlights the resilience of AE patients, their families, and their support systems who tirelessly endure and advocate despite prolonged uncertainty.
“A dear lady friend of mine (with the same illness) said this great quote that I reflect on frequently:
‘Not every day is good, but there is good in every day.’
And that has been absolutely true.
Each day presents itself with its own challenges and even though I don’t know what the future holds,
I am most calm when I focus on the good one day at a time.
–Amy on her AE journey12
On June 16 th, 2022, Tabitha Orth, President and Founder of International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society officially became the 7,315 th “point of light”. Recognized for the volunteer work she and IAES has done to spark change and improve the world for those touched by Autoimmune Encephalitis. The award was founded by President George H.W. Bush in 1990.
Become an Advocate by sharing your story. It may result in accurate diagnosis for someone suffering right now who is yet to be correctly identified. Submit your story with two photos to IAES@autoimmune-encephalitis.org
International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society (IAES), home of the AEWarrior®, is the only Family/Patient-centered organization that assists members from getting a diagnosis through to recovery and the many challenges experienced in their journey. Your donations are greatly appreciated and are the direct result of IAES’ ability to develop the first product in the world to address the needs of patients, Autoimmune Encephalitis Trivia Playing Cards. Every dollar raised allows us to raise awareness and personally help Patients, Families, and Caregivers through their Journey with AE to ensure that the best outcomes can be reached. Your contribution to our mission will help save lives and improve the quality of life for those impacted by AE.
Our website is not a substitute for independent professional medical advice. Nothing contained on our website is intended to be used as medical advice. No content is intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice. Although THE INTERNATIONAL AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALITIS SOCIETY provides a great deal of information about AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALITIS, all content is provided for informational purposes only. The International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society cannot provide medical advice.
International Autoimmune Encephalitis Society is a charitable non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2016 by Tabitha Andrews Orth, Gene Desotell and Anji Hogan-Fesler. Tax ID# 81-3752344. Donations raised directly supports research, patients, families and caregivers impacted by autoimmune encephalitis and to educating healthcare communities around the world. Financial statement will be made available upon request.
Recent Comments