Driving restrictions in patients with seizures; a review of the regulations from the English-speaking nations

Purpose: We investigated the existing regulations about driving eligibility and restrictions for persons with seizures in all English-speaking countries in the world. We aimed to identify: 1) Is there a distinction between epilepsy and functional seizures (FS) in the regulations? 2) What is the required seizure-free period before a person with seizure regains their driving eligibility? Methods: First, we identified all the English-speaking countries in the world. Then, we referred to the website of the Department of Motor Vehicles or its equivalent in each nation or we searched the Google engine with the name of each specific nation and "driving" and "epilepsy". Results: There are 59 English-speaking countries in the world. For 37 nations, the data on regulations about driving eligibility for persons with seizures were lacking. Only the UK has made distinctions between epilepsy and FS. The required seizure-free period before a person with seizure regains their driv-ing eligibility varied significantly between nations. Not all nations have made distinctions between pri-vate driving and commercial driving. Finally, only some nations have specific rules and regulations for different scenarios (e.g., provoked seizures vs epilepsy, or nocturnal seizures only, etc.) Conclusion: Many English-speaking nations in the world do not have explicit rules and regulations about driving eligibility and restrictions for persons with seizures. International scientific organizations should do more to provide appropriate and personalized guidelines for different scenarios of seizures, so the gov-ernments can adopt appropriate regulations. (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.