Autoimmune encephalitis

Today we are joined by Lisa Lauter.

Lisa Lauter, BNSC, MPH is a health advocate, a retired nurse and a survivor of LGI-1 autoimmune encephalitis.

Her career in public health has taken her around the world, from Beijing, China, to Houston, Texas, USA.

Since 2020, Lisa has served as a support group leader for the Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance.

In 2021, she received a Service Award for Most Inspirational Survivor in Autoimmune Encephalitis from Euroimmune, a global leader in medical diagnostic testing of autoimmune and infectious disease.

Lisa's new book, which we will discuss in the podcast, is Songbirds Keep Singing, a memoir of healing from autoimmune brain inflammation, which blends personal accounts, research, and the author's own public health background.

Lisa, welcome to the Encephalitis podcast.

For sure.

There's some of these rapidly progressing cases.

So autoimmune encephalitis can have a range of abnormal movements.

And actually, a three-month non-urgent referral to neurology is not going to capture these patients within an appropriate time window.

I think that captures, like you said, there is this worry, what do I do if I find something? And I think perhaps just reassuring our listeners, it's okay to ask for help if you don't know what to do with something that you find.

OK, thanks, Jonathan.

I think that gives us a really good overview on kind of what we're looking for and also thinking about some of the differentials.

You touched briefly before a little bit about autoimmune encephalitis.

And I think it's probably an important topic at the moment.