EPNS Visiting Teacher 2017 awarded to Mrs van der Louw MSc dietician, the Netherlands to visit Georgia!

 

REPORT AFTER THE VISIT FROM Tbilisi State Medical University

The “Ketogenic diet in pediatric epilepsies” workshop took place at Tbilisi State Medical University G. Zhvania Academic Clinic of Paediatry in Tbilisi, Georgia. Dr. Elles van der Louw was invited as special guest from Erasmus University Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Workshop lasted for 3 days and 50 participants including pediatric neurologists, peadiatricians, dieticians from all over the country attended the course.

On the first day Dr. Sophia Bakhtadze presented the review how  ketogenic diet can be used in epilepsy syndromes. Dr. Elles van der Louw gave an introduction of the ketogenic diet, kinds of ketogenic diets and monitoring on short and longterm. In the afternoon session of the first day Dr. Sophia Bakhtadze and Dr. Elles van der Louw reviewed side effects. On the second day Dr. van der Louw discussed the side effects, how to monitor them and focused on the emergency regimes during illness. The afternoon session of the second day was dedicated to ketogenic diet in complex situations like autism, metabolic diseases etc, in the afternoon followed by instructions how to calculate the diet all presented by Dr. Elles van der Louw.

The third day was extremely valuable as it has high practical yield. Dr. Elles van der Louw and one of the local pediatricians visited local stores and chose special products for diet which can be easily found in Georgian supermarkets and therefore be used during the ketogenic diet treatment. After that Dr. Elles van der Louw with participation of child neurologists and pediatricians, were able to adapt ketogenic diet recipes to the Georgian cuisine. The workshop of how to calculate the diet in each certain case with a simple ketogenic diet calculation computer program was held at the end of the third day.

Besides this Dr. Elles van der Louw made a Georgian manual of the ketogenic diet which has high practical yield which is to be used by the local team when starting the ketogenic diet in their clinic.

The teaching course was a great experience and we are extremely grateful to this wonderful and kind lady for coming our country and giving us the chance and support to start ketogenic diet for the first time in Georgia.