Epilepsy Report

While I was in grade school, in about 7th grade, a young boy with cerebral palsy and epilepsy was placed in my class. He was the only boy in the entire school who had any type of crippling disability, and the building wasn't equipped to handle someone in his condition. I attended a very small, religious, pretty close-minded school on the upper west side and a lot of students made fun of his disability because they didn't understand his behavior.

Because he had both cerebral palsy and epilepsy, he was disfigured. Cerebral palsy is a form of paralysis that is believed to be caused by a prenatal birth defect or by brain injury during birth. This disease is characterized by difficulty in control of one's involuntary muscles, and Alex, the boy in my class, was unable to move one of his arms or bend one of his legs when he walked. He talked slower than most normal kids his age, and I think this was also due do his disability. Because he had epilepsy, he would sometimes have seizures in the middle of class. I never understood what caused his condition or his frequent seizures, so when I learned I had to research a physical disability, I chose to research epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that affects about 50 million people worldwide. It is characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. These seizures, or "fits", are episodes of disturbed brain function that cause changes in attention or behavior. They are caused by excessive neuronal activity in the brain. Sometimes these seizures are related to a temporary condition, such as exposure to drugs, withdrawal from certain drugs, or abnormal levels of glucose in the blood. In other cases, epilepsy may come from a previous injury to the brain, such as a head injury or stroke. For example, my aunt was in a car accident when she was a teenager and developed epilepsy because of a severe blow to the head. These types of injuries can cause the brain tissue to become abnormally excitable. In some people, the abnormality affects the brain, causing seizures. Disorders affecting the blood vessels, such as the stroke, are the leading cause of seizures in adults over 60. Disorders such as Alzheimer's can also lead to seizures.

These are some of the factors that cause epilepsy, but they make up a small percentage of those who have the disorder. Epilepsy is usually characterized by unprovoked seizures. This means the person who is affected may experience seizures while doing normal everyday activities. Some of the provocants include reading, hot water on the head, hyperventilation, and flashing or flickering lights. People who suffer seizures from flashing and flickering lights have trouble viewing televisions, computers screens, and taking pictures, but this only affects a small part of the population. Some environmental factors may also trigger seizures. These factors include being asleep, the transition from sleep to wakefulness, tiredness and sleep deprivation, illness, constipation, menstruation, stress or anxiety, alcohol consumption, pregnancy, skipping doses of epilepsy medication, and some other prescribed medicines. Some illnesses and diseases may also cause seizures, such as complications due to diabetes or reactions to some diabetes medications. Those who suffer from kidney failure and uremia are also at risk for seizure because of the accumulation of toxic waste in their body.

Epilepsy is the most common of all serious neurological disorders. Epilepsy and seizures affect about 0.5% of the population, or 5 per 1,000 people. The term epilepsy is used to categorize an individual who suffers from chronic seizures, but anyone can have a seizure during any time in their life. These are known as non-febrile seizures. About 1.5% - 5% of the population will suffer at least one non-febrile seizure in their lifetime, but they will not necessarily be diagnosed with this disorder. Epilepsy is more common in underdeveloped countries than in the developed world. Epilepsy's approximate annual incidence rate is 100 - 190 in third-world countries, but in industrialized nations the annual incidence rate is only 40 - 70 per 100,000.

There are many different types of seizures and they range from mild to deadly. They are first organized by the source of the seizure. Partial or focal onset seizures occur in a localized part of the brain, while generalized seizures usually occur throughout more distributed parts of the body. For example, someone who suffers from a partial seizure may be able to control some bodily functions, but someone suffering from a generalized seizure may feel the effects of it throughout their body. Partial seizures are then further divided into 2 sections: simple partial and complex partial, or psychomotor seizure. Simple partial and complex partial are terms used to describe what level of consciousness is affected during the seizure, with the latter being the more serious. Generalized seizures are divided into sections depending on what area of the body is affected. All generalized seizures result in a loss of consciousness. These categories include absence (petit mal), myoclonic, clonic, tonic, tonic-clonic (grand mal), and atonic seizures.

The symptoms of these seizures may vary from person to person, but everyone who suffers from epilepsy will show some type of warning sign. For many people, they will suffer the same symptoms over and over, while some people will have many types of seizures and suffer from different symptoms each time. Partial seizures affect only a portion of the brain, therefore these symptoms are a lot less serious and may be harder to recognize. Some symptoms of simple partial seizure include dilated pupils, muscle contractions of a specific body part, abnormal sensations or tingling throughout the body, nausea, skin flushing, and heavy sweating. Complex partial seizures share some of the same symptoms as the simple partial seizures, such a sweating, dilated pupils, skin flushing and nausea. A person suffering from a partial complex seizure may also go into automatism. Automatism is the automatic performance of complex behaviors without conscious awareness of it, such as the action of tying one's shoes. The person many also recall or inappropriate emotions seldom expressed, or go through changes in alertness and personality. In this state, the affected person may or may not lose consciousness, so extra attention must be paid to one having a partial complex seizure.

Generalized seizures affect all or most of the brain; therefore the person suffering from these types of seizures must be carefully supervised so they don't hurt themselves. While in class with Alex, the boy with the disability, I recall several times when he suffered from a generalized seizure and he lost control of his body. He once had a seizure and passed out and fell down the stairs. After this incident, the students