Epilepsy

Description

Epilepsy is characterized by recurring and sudden seizures, brief attacks of inappropriate behavior, change in consciousness, or bizarre movements. Symptoms are caused by abnormal brain electrical activity. Also called fits or convulsions, seizures are a symptom of the electrical activity, not a disease, and they have never been proven to be triggered by athletic activity. However, those who have seizures may have to modify their athletic participation, because intermittent short-term loss of consciousness may lead to injury in some sports.

Frequent signs and symptoms

Signs and symptoms depend on the type of seizure disorder:

• Petit mal epilepsy affects mostly children. With this type of seizure, the person stops moving and stares blankly around for a minute or so, unaware of what is going on.

• Grand mal epilepsy affects people of all ages. With this type of seizure, the person loses consciousness, stiffens, then twitches and jerks uncontrollably. The seizure lasts several minutes, the person may lose bladder control, and the event is often followed by deep sleep or mental confusion. Prior to the seizure, the person may have warning signals, sometimes called auras, that let them know a seizure is coming: these can be feelings of tension or warmth, having a sense of impending doom, visual disturbances, smelling a bad odor, or hearing strange noises.

• Focal epilepsy causes uncontrollable twitching in some part of the body. The twitching spreads to the point that it may involve the whole body, but the person does not lose consciousness.

• Temporal lobe epilepsy causes the person to suddenly behave out of character or inappropriately, such as becoming suddenly violent or angry, laughing for no reason, or making agitated or bizarre body movements, including odd chewing movements.

Causes

• Seizures result from abnormal, excessive electrical signals produced by the brain’s nerve cells. They may be caused by any of more than 50 brain disorders, yet the cause is usually identified in only 25% of cases.

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