Epilepsy foundation

There is a voluntary health organization existing by the name of the Epilepsy Foundation which is dedicated to the comfortable living of epilepsy patients and which ensures that the epilepsy patients lead a normal and comparatively healthy life.

The function of the Epilepsy Foundation is to provide different types of services to epileptic patients along with their families, educate and advise those epileptics and show them how to lead a normal life, what to do and not to do, which medications to take, which diets to follow, who to contact in case of emergency and so on and so forth. It also functions as a kind of epilepsy support group that is much required for epilepsy patients. It is affiliated to National Health Council and International Bureau for Epilepsy.

This epilepsy foundation has several offices and franchises and is scattered throughout the world. That means, not only is the epilepsy foundation a domestic concern but it also operates on a pan international level. Each and every state of USA boasts of the presence of the epilepsy foundation such as Epilepsy Foundation of California, Epilepsy Foundation of Texas, and Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota etc.

Of course the epilepsy foundation extols a primary aim which may be defined as a concern for epilepsy patients as to whether they are participating in all the normal mainstream activities which healthy people perform. Another aspect of the epilepsy foundation that isn’t highlighted so much is the sponsoring of research and development of medicines and curative techniques and preventive measures that might cure the disease fast or root out the problem. It is also working towards bringing about an alteration in the laws and legislations of the country so that epileptics might get equal opportunities like other normal citizens.

Symptoms of epilepsy

There is a disturbance in the brain where the electrical activity takes place when an epileptic individual experiences seizures. The symptoms will vary depending on the location of the electrical disturbance in the brain. An epileptic individual suffering from grand mal or tonic clonic seizure will suffer from muscle jerks, rigidity of muscles, fall down on the ground, lose consciousness or cry out.

If it is a complex partial seizure, then the individual will look dazed or confused and if you ask him for directions or ask him questions, he won’t be able to respond for his mind and brain will be clouded. In some other people, the seizures are not that noticeable and other individuals surrounding that person will not notice when the seizures are coming on.

In case of a petit mal seizure or absence, the only sign or symptom that the individual will experience will be a few seconds of blankness or staring vacantly into space and blinking rapidly.

Simple partial seizures symptoms

Majority of the patients are characterized by stereotypical signs and symptoms. Some of the motor symptoms are arrest of vocalization and speech, asymmetrical posturing of limbs, turning of the head and movements of the eye to the same side, alternating relaxation and contraction of the groups of muscles.

The sensory symptoms are lightheadedness, dizziness, experiencing unpleasant tastes and odors, hearing of hissing or buzzing or humming sounds, experiencing hallucinations, illusions and seeing flashes of colors and lights. The autonomic symptoms and signs are rapid heart beat rate or tachycardia, sweating, papillary dilation, goose bumps or piloerection, vomiting, nausea, incontinence troubles, flushing and borborygmi.

Temporal lobe epilepsy falls under the category of focal epilepsy. A person suffering from temporal lobe epilepsy will experience frequent seizures and the condition is a chronic neurological one. 50% of all the epilepsy cases that are reported are focal epilepsy cases.

Symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy

Temporal lobe epilepsy symptoms can be widely varying in nature but certain common patterns can be detected among those varying features. The experience during temporal lobe epilepsy involves synaesthesia where completely foreign or familiar experiences, thoughts, emotions and feelings of different types get mixed.

A patient might even experience a sense of déjà vu or a resurfacing of a chain of old memories. Some other patients will find that everything surrounding them appears to be unfamiliar or strange including family members, their homes or houses, their neighborhood etc.

These people also tend to hallucinate a lot, suffer from illusions, and may sense certain strange tastes or smells or hear music and voices, see people who are not there and other such strange things. Warnings or auras are the names given to these hallucinations. From a few seconds, these auras may last for 2 minutes or one minute.

Those who suffer from temporal lobe epilepsy seizures often experience symptoms which differ in quality and intensity. At times seizures are really mild making them extremely difficult to detect or notice. Whereas in severe cases of temporal lobe epilepsy, symptoms can range from pleasure to intellectual fascination and fright.

Even an adult who loves to wax eloquent and is an artful speaker will find it difficult at times to describe in words the strange sensations and experiences that these seizures result in. Naturally, we have a rather vague idea of how children feel and what they experience during temporal lobe epilepsy seizures.

Because of this, the patient displays signs and symptoms like sensing or feeling a special kind of phenomenon involving the senses which is medically known as somatosensory phenomenon, the twitching of limbs, and in disturbance or hindrance of complicated mental activities that are of a focal type. It is also known as cortical epilepsy.

Sensory simple partial seizures can occur quite a few times per day and the period for which it lasts is usually 30 seconds to 10 seconds. Patients have reported numbness and mild pain which can magnify into an overwhelming pain and the curious thing is that it has generally been observed to begin in the same general area of the patient’s face. It is accompanied by twitching and the patient often feels that he is drawing closer to a grand mal seizure.

Sensory simple partial seizures can also occur at night when you are sleeping and as a result, patients who have had such sensory seizures in their sleeps are often afraid to go to sleep. Some patients however experience sensory simple partial seizures in day time as well. Studies have shown that memory loss and fear are some of the symptoms of sensory partial seizures.

Although sensory epilepsy cannot be cured, it can be effectively kept under control through medication and drugs like Tegretol and Lamictal and Vagus Nerve Stimulator. If medications fail to regulate the sensory seizures, you have to opt for surgery.

Some more symptoms of sensory epilepsy are sensory illusions, illusions and hallucinations regarding taste, smell, vision, touch etc, crawling sensation, tingling, and numbness. The seizures will start in one part or portion of the body and radiate out to other parts. In case of memory loss, as reported by some patients, the sensory seizure will be referred to as complex partial sensory seizure.

Common types of epilepsy

The commonest types of epilepsy are parietal lobe epilepsy, occipital lobe epilepsy, frontal lobe epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy and absence epilepsy.

Absence epilepsy

This is characterized by absence seizures which will occur repeatedly. Usually it has a hereditary base because it runs in families. It is in adolescence and sometimes even in childhood that the seizures begin. However the good thing with absence epilepsy is that when the seizures start taking place in childhood, by the time the child reaches puberty, the seizures stop occurring.

Parietal lobe epilepsy

It is between the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe that the parietal lobe is located. A special characteristic of parietal lobe is that the seizures associated with it get distributed to other parts of the brain. But this is a characteristic that is shared by some other types of epilepsy as well.

Occipital lobe epilepsy

It is at the rear end of the skull that the occipital lobe is situated. Temporal lobe epilepsies and frontal lobe epilepsies are pretty similar to occipital lobe epilepsy in many ways and different from it in the sense that the seizures originate in the eye region or in the occipital lobe and the symptoms are all related to the eye – like rapid blinking of the eyes, visual hallucinations etc.

Frontal lobe epilepsy

In this type of epilepsy, the seizures start in clusters which are short and which stop as suddenly as they start. The frontal lobes are the largest in size among the five lobes.

However, you have to be clear about one thing. All the types of epilepsy will not display all of the above features but will definitely exhibit quite a few of them. It is important to know the type of epilepsy the patient is suffering from because that will be helpful in diagnosing the problem, finding out more specialized information about that type of epilepsy which will help to zero in on the correct mode of treatment and medication .

If the doctor gets an inkling of the type of epilepsy that the patient is suffering from, he might also be able to guess or predict if there is any chance for the seizure to disappear or minimize.

Now I shall discuss the commonest types of epilepsy that are frequently noticed. They are parietal lobe epilepsy, occipital lobe epilepsy, frontal lobe epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy and absence epilepsy.

Since epilepsy is also known as seizure disorder, we must also look at the types of seizures associated with epilepsy. The two major categories of seizures are generalized seizures and partial seizures. The whole of the brain gets affected by generalized seizures whereas a particular portion of the brain is affected by partial seizures.

Partial epilepsy seizures can again be subdivided into secondarily generalized seizures, aura, complex partial seizures and simple partial seizures.

Did you know that when the usual pattern of the normal activity of the brain is hindered by any factor, it can trigger off epilepsy? The causes of epilepsy can be numerous and varied – such as abnormal brain development or brain damage or illness. However these account for only 25% of the cases. In the rest 75% of the epilepsy cases, no exact cause can be ascertained.

The reason why doctors find it very difficult to identify any specific cause behind a particular case of epilepsy is because there are countless causes in general and quite a few other conditions may be linked to the epilepsy case some of which are hereditary causes, brain chemistry, other disorders, environmental causes, prenatal injuries, head injury etc.

Causes of epilepsy – Brain chemistry

When there is a pathological disorder or chemical imbalance in the brain which will affect the brain neurons’ ability to transmit electrical impulses, it might result in epilepsy. Neurotransmitters are the name given to chemicals in the brain.
When the impulse transmission gets increased manifold because of excessive neurotransmitters it can lead to epilepsy. This condition is called excitatory neurotransmitter.

The opposite case also can cause epilepsy when transmission is reduced because of small number of neurotransmitters. This condition is known as inhibitory neurotransmitter.

Hereditary causes of epilepsy

Genetic abnormalities that affect the processing of sodium, potassium, calcium and other salts and chemicals in the body by causing subtle changes and alterations tend to run in certain families. In these families some members have a genetic predisposition towards epilepsy. There is an extremely severe form of epilepsy known as LaFora’s disease that affects many people and in this kind of epilepsy a gene is missing that performs the vital function of breaking down of carbohydrates. However genetic predisposition or genetic makeup is not a direct cause behind epilepsy.

Other disorders

The normal workings of the brain get affected by Alzheimer’s disease, alcoholism and brain tumors which in turn cause epilepsy. Other disorders which can result in epilepsy are cerebrovascular diseases like heart attacks, cardiac arrests, strokes and similar other conditions where supply of blood to the brain is affected.

Epilepsy can be of several types and it is a pretty common condition all over the world, where 50 million people are afflicted by epilepsy annually and in America, 2% of the entire population falls prey to epilepsy every year. In this article we shall discuss a rare sub type of epilepsy called abdominal epilepsy.

Abdominal epilepsy

When epileptiform seizure activity causes GI or gastrointestinal disturbances, it gives rise to the very rare medical condition called abdominal epilepsy. Medical research hasn’t yet been able to prove a link between GI symptoms and the abdominal epilepsy seizures and no direct cause has yet been ascertained, but on the other hand the problem is that other pathophysiological mechanisms can never explain the cause behind these GI symptoms. The best treatment for abdominal epilepsy is anticonvulsant treatment.

One of the symptoms of abdominal epilepsy is recurrent abdominal pain. Abdominal epilepsy is considered to fall under the category of temporal lobe epilepsy. While trying to diagnose the problem, if the patient does respond to anticonvulsants, the doctor may be sure that it is abdominal epilepsy indeed.

As pointed out several times, earlier, abdominal epilepsy is a very rare condition indeed and the specific estimates of the incidence of this disease are not to be found. However a 2005 review article and individual case reports put the tally at only 36 cases of abdominal epilepsy in total, according to medical journals and literature.

History tells us that Trousseau was the first one to name and examine a case of abdominal epilepsy in 1868 when he was examining a boy for paroxysmal GI symptoms that end with epileptic seizures of the grand mal type. Abdominal epilepsy is different from abdominal migraine. Many doctors and medical research scholars do not accept this medical condition of abdominal epilepsy, which has turned it into a highly controversial topic.

As said earlier, abdominal pain is sometimes the only present symptom and the only and commonest type of warning signal of this epileptic condition. The pain when it occurs is usually intense, tends to continue for quite a few minutes, takes place in the upper mid abdomen and the onset of the pain is extremely abrupt. The pain will haunt the patient quite a few times every day and it will stretch for several days.

When recurrent seizures that are unprovoked accompany a kind of chronic neurological disorder that is pretty common, it is known as epilepsy. 2% of the American population is a prey of epilepsy at any given point of time and the global figures amount to 50 million annually.

Although epilepsy is treatable and can be effectively kept under control through drugs and medication, if the case is severe or critical, surgery might be a last resort.

But in most cases it has been observed that in spite of taking the best available drugs and medicines, in 30% of the cases, the patients are not able to control their seizures. Some of the symptoms of epilepsy are convulsions, falling down on the ground, losing consciousness, crying out, often vocalization and speech get arrested, the limbs are postured asymmetrically, alternate rigidity and relaxation of muscles, hallucinations, illusions, bright flashes of color or light passing before vision, lightheadedness, dizziness, sensing out unpleasant odors and tastes, hissing or buzzing or humming noises in the ear, sweating or perspiration, papillary dilation, goose bumps, vomiting, nausea, incontinence, borborygmi, flushing, tachycardia, unprovoked emotions of eroticism or elation or anger or depression or displeasure or pleasure or fear, a distorted sense of time, a dreamy sort of a state, depersonalization, detachment, panoramic vision, jamais entendu, jamais vu, déjà entendu, déjà vu, flashbacks etc.

At times the patient may indulge in violent or aggressive behavior and at other times when the patient falls unconscious, he unknowingly clenches his jaw and fingers or drools or bites the lip or cheek or tongue.

There are various types of epilepsy such as parietal lobe epilepsy, occipital lobe epilepsy, frontal lobe epilepsy, temporal lobe epilepsy and absence epilepsy. There are also different kinds of seizures and epilepsy is often referred to as seizure disorder.

Epilepsy can be treated and there are drugs available for controlling it. You must contact your doctor who will prescribe the proper remedial measure after careful diagnosis. You may also contact and become a member of the Epilepsy Foundation in your state or country. There is one branch located conveniently near at hand.