Watching your loved one with epilepsy having a seizure can be quite intimidating. But, what are seizure and epilepsy? Seizures are abnormal behaviors or movements that occur because of the unusual electrical movements in the brain. Epilepsy also has similar symptoms as that of Seizure, but not every patient who suffers seizure have epilepsy.
Further, seizures include both the convulsions and altered mental status. They can also be life-threatening, when the condition of status-epilepticus occur, which means seizure does not subside.
What Triggers A Seizure?
Conditions like high fever giving rise to infections like meningitis, head trauma, strokes, and other medications, can cause a seizure. Moreover, drugs that treat the situation like phenytoin or dilantin long term side effects can make you sleepless and evoke seizure.
Further, nerve cells in the brain create, receive, and send electrical signals, thereby allowing the brain’s nerve cell’s to communicate. Any hindrance to this communication leads to the seizure.
Epilepsy is another reason for the occurrence of seizures. However, the reason a person develops epilepsy is in vague. It can occur because of an injury from trauma, illnesses, stroke, surgery, and more. There might be a situation when the person is born with the abnormalities of the brain or is deprived of oxygen at birth. In kids, seizures occur because of medical conditions like cerebral palsy, mental retardation, autism, and more.
Symptoms Of Seizure:
The symptoms of seizure range form the mild ones to the most severe one. Some common symptoms are:
- A staring spell
- Loss of consciousness
- Lack of awareness in doing anything
- Cognitive or other emotional symptoms like fear, anxiety or déjà vu
- Temporary confusion
Types Of Seizure:
Focal Seizure: These seizures occur because of the abnormal electrical activity in one particular area of the brain. This condition arises with or without loss of awareness or consciousness.
- That occur with impaired awareness: These seizures usually involve loss of awareness or consciousness. There might be a situation when you find the patient staring continuously to space and will not respond normally. Or, he/she might perform repetitive movements like swallowing, hand rubbing, chewing, or walking in circles.
- Without the loss of consciousness: This seizure alter emotions or can change the way things look, feel, sound, or taste, but in this, you won’t lose consciousness. These seizures also occur because of the involuntary jerking in the body part like arm or leg or because of another spontaneous sensory symptom like dizziness, flashing lights, or tingling.
Generalized Seizures:
These seizures occur in all parts of the brain. The most common generalized seizure are:
- Absence Seizure: Also known as petit mal seizures, these often occur in kids and are also characterized through subtle body movements like lip smacking or eye blinking. Moreover, these seizures occur in clusters and caused short of awareness.
- Tonic Seizures: These seizures usually affect the back muscles, arms, legs, and can make you fall to the ground. Besides, these seizures cause stiffening of body muscles.
- Clonic Seizures: These seizures are associated with the rhythmic or repeated jerking of body muscles. Such seizures usually affect the face, arms, and neck.
- Atonic Seizures: Also called as drop seizures, Atonic seizures cause a lot of muscle control and make you suddenly collapse or fall down.
- Myoclonic Seizures: These seizures often occur as sudden, brief jerks or twitches in the arms and legs.
- Tonic-Clonic Seizures: Previously called as grand mal seizures, these are the most dramatic type of epileptic seizure, which can cause body stiffening, shaking, loss of consciousness, and sometimes loss of bladder control.
How You Can Help Someone Suffering From Seizure:
- First aid! Seizure first aid is all about taking precautions. Some of the common things to do are:
- Keep other people away
- Take hard or sharp products away from the infected person
- Don’t try to stop the movements
- Keep their airway clear
- If the seizure lasts more than a few minutes, call the doctor for help!
Having seizure at certain situations can lead to situations that are not only dangerous for the sufferer but also for you. However, the above information will help!
