In loving memory of Dean Henshall

Dean Jefferson Henshall, much loved son of Sheila & Geoff, grandson of Doris & Jim, brother of Lucy – and now re-united with nanny Vera and grandad Jimmy.

Following a prolonged seizure in the early hours of Tuesday 27 October Dean was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. Very sadly, in spite of receiving the very best care available, Dean passed away peacefully at 1.10PM on Friday 30 October.

Dean’s family have been determined to make sure something good comes out of this tragedy and have created a facebook fan page in his memory. An anonymous donor has come forward to donate 10p to the IDEA League UK for each fan that joins. Dean’s fan page can be found Facebook, click here, please join and help to raise money in memory of a very special young man.

Dean’s family also set up a Justgiving page in his memory and to date have raised over £7,000

Following the ‘Dravet Syndrome – Severe Myoclonic Epilepsy of Infancy: 30 Years Later’ meeting held last October in Verona, Italy, The IDEA League UK are proud to be part sponsoring (along with The IDEA League) the publication of the proceedings of that workshop.

The publication will feature as a supplement in ‘Epilepsia’ later on this year. Epilepsia is the leading, most authoritative source for current clinical and research results on all aspects of epilepsy.

Kate Watts, initial founder of the Yahoo SMEI forum and current IDEA League advisor attended the workshop and made a presentation on the subject of SUDEP. Kate said “there were about 130 doctors there from across the world. Our presentations were very well received and many doctors thanked me personally after my talk on SUDEP. Encouraging doctors to talk to parents about difficult subjects was imperative and to be able to feed back information from parents was invaluable.”

Having the proceedings from this workshop publicised will be a great way to reach out to those professionals who were not in attendance in Verona.