Epilepsy is a neurological disorder which affects the central nervous system. The brain activity in this condition becomes abnormal, leading to periodic unusual behaviour or seizures, specific sensations and loss of awareness. Epilepsy can affect any gender, all races and ethnicity along with individuals of different ages. The symptoms of seizures also vary from person to person ranging from a pure gaze to twitching of the arms and legs. To confirm the diagnosis of epilepsy, an individual should undergo two or more unprovoked seizures if there is a single seizure at any point of life that doesn’t indicate epilepsy.
For proper control of seizures, certain people need medications, surgical therapy or lifetime medications. However, others might not need any treatment for control of seizures.
The signs and symptoms involved with seizures include:
- Temporary confusion
- Staring spell without any blink of eyes
- Psychic symptoms like anxiety, fear and déjà vu
- Abnormal jerky movements of legs and arms
The symptoms of seizures vary from person to person, depending on the type of seizures. The seizures are broadly classified into focal and generalized seizures.
Focal or partial seizures occur due to abnormal activity in a single part of the brain. These seizures are further divided into:
Focal seizures with loss of consciousness where the person keeps on staring or performs repetitive movements like swallowing, chewing, rubbing, walking and others.
Focal seizures without loss of awareness are teh condition where the person feels symptoms like dizziness, tingling or flashing lights. The emotions are altered during this condition like you handle things differently in terms of their look, taste, sound or smell.
The second category of seizures includes generalized seizures which are further divided into:
- Absence seizures/ petit mal seizures where the person keeps on gazing or performs repetitive lip-smacking and eye blinking. In this condition, a person experiences a loss of consciousness for a brief period.
- Tonic seizures are the condition where the person feels stiffness in muscles, especially in the arms, back or legs.
- Atonic seizures/ drop seizures where a person loses muscle control and collapses.
- Clonic seizures are linked with rhythmic or repeated jerky movements that affect the arms, neck or face.
- Myoclonic seizures are teh condition which appears as sudden jerks and twitches in the legs or arms.
- Tonic-clonic seizures are teh condition where you abruptly lose consciousness with the shaky body and muscle stiffness.
The causes of seizures within half of the epilepsy patients is unknown. However, in other individuals, it most commonly occurs due to traumatic injury to the head, genetic influence, brain disorders like tumours and stroke, infectious diseases like viral encephalitis, AIDS, meningitis, prenatal injury due to infections in mother, oxygen deficiency or poor nutrition’s. It can also occur due to developmental disorders like neurofibromatosis or autism.
The risk factors that might increase your risk of suffering from epilepsy include age, family history, head injuries, vascular diseases like stroke, brain infections, dementia, seizures during childhood and others.
The complications associated with epilepsy include falling, drowning, car accidents, complications during pregnancy, emotional or psychological problems. The severe complications that might occur due to epilepsy include status epilepticus where a person suffers from continuous seizures or sudden death in epilepsy due to respiratory or heart conditions.
Consult your doctor immediately if the seizures last for 6-7 minutes, you experience second seizure immediately, you are diabetic or pregnant, or you injured yourself during the abnormal seizures.
Until Next Time,
Team Doctor ASKY!