Involving complete collapse, foaming, eye-rolling and intense quivering, a seizure usually draws a concerned crowd of onlookers who are both terrified and unsure what to do to help.
An estimated one in 26 people in the United States will suffer some form of a seizure. Of those, almost 10 percent may have just a single episode in a lifetime.
Seizures are generally known as a symptom of the condition called epilepsy. It is estimated that more than 2.5 million adults, and more than 450,000 children and teens in the United States, have epilepsy. Every year more than 150,000 people are added to that statistic. Epilepsy is a brain attack that affects males and females, all races and ethnicities, and can strike at any age.
Medical professionals will only diagnose epilepsy if two unprovoked seizures occur.
All seizures require medical treatment, and all are potentially dangerous, particularly if they happen while driving, swimming or operating machinery. About 80 percent of people can be treated with medications or surgery, and some children who are stricken can outgrow the condition. In most cases, the person afflicted will have the same type of seizure each time.
WHO IS AT RISK?
Unfortunately, why someone suffers an epileptic seizure remains a mystery in about half the cases. For the other half, probable causes include a genetic link that runs in families. While genes are likely a part of the cause, there are more than 500 genes that are thought to be tied to epilepsy. It’s also theorized that some environmental triggers make carriers of the gene more likely to have a seizure. These triggers include flashing lights.
Other factors include a head trauma from an accident; prior brain tumors or strokes, particularly in those over age 35; infectious diseases, including AIDS, meningitis or viral encephalitis; injuries sustained before birth because of infection, poor nutrition or oxygen deficiency to the fetus; and developmental disorders, including autism and neurofibromatosis.
A prior stroke or other vascular diseases may also produce seizures; a poor diet, smoking and a sedentary lifestyle can contribute to the risk of seizures; dementia, brain infections, and brain inflammation also boost a person’s risk. It is also believed that high fevers in childhood may also be at higher risk.
VARIATIONS OF SEIZURES
There are many types of epileptic seizures, but they are usually classified into two major categories: generalized and partial seizures, sometimes referred to as focal or local. The classifications are used to determine whether the person suffering from the seizures has epilepsy.
In generalized seizures, electrical impulses flow throughout the entire brain, while partial seizures occur only in a small portion of the brain. Partial seizures can later expand into a broader area). The brain area believed to be generating the seizures is the focus.
There are six types of generalized seizures. They include:
1. Grand Mal - A seizure that produces convulsions, unconsciousness, and muscle rigidity
2. Absence – Seizures that lead to a brief loss of consciousness
3. Myoclonic - Sporadic and sometimes isolated jerking movements in the body
4. Clonic - Jerking, repetitive movements
5. Tonic - Rigid and stiff muscles
6. Atonic - Loss of toning in the muscles
Grand mal seizures are the most common and the most well-known of the generalized seizures. This is a dramatic condition that causes the sufferer to lose consciousness and often collapse. Once consciousness is lost, the patient’s body will stiffen (referred to as the tonic phase) for up to 60 seconds. What follows is violent jerking (the clonic phase of the seizure).
That is followed by a deep sleep, known as the postictal or after-seizure. The seizure may also cause tongue biting and involuntary urination by the patient. This occurs because the person loses control of his or her body functions. Anyone who suffers this terrifying seizure will need to immediately be treated by medical professionals.
The Absence seizures have few to no symptoms and are just a brief loss of consciousness, typically a slight pause as the victim of the seizure stares blankly. Typically occurring in children, these seizures can happen several times a day and without the patient realizing he or she is even having a seizure, except for a vague sense of time lost.
The Myoclonic seizures will be highlighted by sporadic jerking movements on either or both sides of the body, sometimes slight, but sometimes violent. Sufferers refer to them as electrical shocks, and the seizures can often result in objects being involuntarily thrown or dropped. Clonic seizures are repetitive jerking in rhythm that happens to both sides of the body in tandem while the Tonic seizures are merely stiffening muscles.
Finally, Atonic seizures are the simple loss of muscle tone in the arms or legs. If the seizure happens in the legs, the sufferer may collapse.
BEYOND THE SEIZURE
Partial seizures are compartmentalized into simple, complex and secondary generalized seizures. During a partial seizure, patients are awake and aware but lose that awareness during the complex partial seizure.
A simple partial seizure is broken down into four categories, classified by their symptoms: motor, sensory, autonomic or psychological. The motor symptoms include stiffening and jerking; sensory involve impairments of any of the five senses (hearing, vision, smell, taste and touch). When a simple partial seizure only affects sensory symptoms without causing motor symptoms, it is referred to as auras.
Autonomic symptoms are attacks on the autonomic nervous system which controls automatic processes like breathing in the lungs, blood flow in the heart, digestion in the stomach, emptying of the bladder, processing in the intestines and other automatic issues. When seizures occur, symptoms like racing heartbeats, diarrhea, upset stomach and lack of bladder control take place. However, the only common issue is a stomach issue that some patients with epilepsy experience called temporal lobe epilepsy.
Simple partial seizures affect memory, emotions like fear/pleasure, and other psychological issues.
Those who experience a seizure should always seek medical attention. This holds particularly true if the seizure lasts more than five minutes; if consciousness or breathing is still impaired after the immediate effects of the seizure stop; if a second seizure happens immediately; if a high fever is present or the afflicted has heat exhaustion; if the afflicted is pregnant or diabetic; and if the seizure causes injury to the afflicted.
SEIZURE TREATMENTS
There is no medication that can prevent epilepsy, and there is currently no cure. However, there are drugs available that can control symptoms to a large degree for most individuals. There are more than 20 anti-seizure medications, all offering different benefits and side effects. Most seizures can be controlled with one drug, but determining which is most effective may take several months and different tests. It all depends on the patient’s condition, age and (in women) whether they are pregnant or hope to become pregnant.
If enough time passes without a seizure, patients may be advised to discontinue their medications. However, the general rule of thumb for going off a medication regimen is two to five years seizure-free. Weaning off seizure medication should only be done under the close supervision of a doctor.