The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) plans to organize Brainstorm 2002, an awareness programme meant to sensitize the public on common brain diseases like stroke and epilepsy in New Delhi on 28th and 29th of December 2002. The department of Neurology of AIIMS has planned a series of lectures on stroke, epilepsy, dementia, head injury and stress relaxation therapy and a walkathon attended by 1000 school children during the two days.

Informing this at a press conference here on Thursday, Dr M V Padma, organizing secretary, said that stroke is one of the major killer diseases with 50% mortality recorded in the country.

"Due to lack of knowledge, there is an all-pervading fatalism about the most common brain ailments, not only in general public but also in medical fraternity and allied specialties. Neurosciences center at AIIMS has long felt the need to heighten public awareness with respect to common brain diseases. Therefore, to increase awareness to share recent advances in the understanding and treatment of brain diseases AIIMS is organizing Brainstorm 2002", she said.

Stroke is the second most common killer in the world and has the dubious distinction of out beating heart attacks in this regard. Epilepsy as a disease is very common in India with 1.4 lakh epileptics in Delhi alone. "Majority of epilepsy cases are curable through surgery but the public is yet to be aware of this", Dr Padma said.
Brain storm 2002 will attempt to update, educate and enlighten the general public of most commonly occurring brain ailments and also try to shatter the myths and misconceptions associated with brain diseases, she said.
Morepen Laboratories Limited is sponsoring the event.