Epilepsy and seizures

 What is Epilepsy?

Epilepsy, seizure... You always see these words being thrown around, from TV shows to books to jokes. A lot of people know what the simplified meaning of what an epilepsy is, but not a lot knows it in depth or even the true meaning of it. The meaning of having an epilepsy is to have two or more unprovoked seizures. Well, what does unprovoked mean then? An unprovoked seizure is a seizure which its cause is unknown. Seizures caused by allergic reactions, low blood sugar, infections... are provoked seizures, because there is a direct cause for it. Moving onto stats, did you also know that epilepsy is the fourth most common neurological disorder? Unfortunately, it is. As of 2019, a staggering 1.2% of people have active epilepsy, which is about 3.4 million people in the US alone! Other than that, over 1 in 26 will experience an epilepsy in their lifetime. That is scary to think of! That's about 4% of people! And the worse thing is that it doesn't only happen to adults, it happens to children too. Out of the 3.4 million cases in the US, 470000 of them are children. 

What are seizures?

Seizures are sudden surges of electrical activities in a person's brain. This can be an imbalance of activity caused by lack of or too much activity. It can affect the patient in many way, such as the common violent shaking. Over 10% of people will experience a seizure in their lifetime!

Types of Seizures:

- Generalized Seizures: affects the whole brain

    -Petit Mal Seizures:

        - Absence seizure -- Blank out for a few seconds and recover

    -Grand Mal Seizures:

        - Tonic seizure -- Muscle stiffens

        - Clonic seizure -- Recurrent shaking, jerking and twitching for parts of body

        - Myoclonic seizure -- Irregular singular short jerking of parts of body (short clonic seizure)

        - Atonic seizure (Drop attacks) -- Sudden loss of muscle strength

- Focal Seizures: affects a specific part of the brain

    - Simple Focal seizure -- sudden twitch or change in sensation

    - Complex Focal seizure -- causes confusion

    - Secondary Generalized seizure -- causes focal seizure first, then causes generalized seizure

Causes of seizures:

- Alcohol Withdrawal (when you suddenly stop consuming alcohol after a long time of drinking it)4

- Alcohol Overdose

- Brain Infection

- Brain/Head Injury

- Brain Defect

- Brain Tumor/Cancer

- Choking

- COVID-19 (severe cases)

- Drug Withdrawal

- Drug Overdose

- Electric Shock

- High Blood Pressure (Too high)

- High Fever

- Kidney Failure

- Liver Failure

- Low Glucose Levels (Too low)

- Sleep Deprived

- Strobe lights/sounds (Photosensitive seizure)

- Stroke

Treatment:

- Anti-Seizure medication

- Surgery

- Vagus Nerve Stimulation

- Neurostimulation 

- Deep Brain Stimulation

Prevention:

- Get enough sleep

- Take less alcohol

- Don't take drugs without prescription

- Don't play video games for too long

- Try to relieve stress