Epilepsy is a condition in which a person has a risk of recurring epileptic seizures. Non-epileptic seizures can be caused by other conditions such as low blood sugar, a fainting spell, or an anxiety attack.
Seizure types:
1. Convulsions (tonic-clonic or grand mal seizures): In this type of seizure, a person may stiffen and have jerking muscle movements; during the muscle-jerking, the person may bite their tongue, causing bleeding or frothing at the mouth.
2. Partial seizures: Shaking movements may be isolated to one arm or part of the face. Alternatively, the person may suddenly stop responding and stare for a few seconds, sometimes with chewing motions or smacking the lips.
3. Sensory seizures: Seizures may also cause “sensations” that only the patient feels. For example, one type of seizure can cause stomach discomfort, fear, or an unpleasant smell. Such subjective feelings are commonly referred to as auras. A person usually experiences the same symptoms with each seizure aura. Sometimes, a seizure aura can occur before a convulsive seizure.
Epilepsy in children and infants:
1. Childhood absence epilepsy: manifest by frequent (as many as 100 times per day or more) episodes of brief staring spells (lasting for a few seconds at a time) in children of school age.
2. Infantile spasms: occur in infants aged 4-8 months and are usually part of West syndrome. Consist of clusters of myoclonic spasms that occur when waking up.
3. Dravet syndrome: rare drug-resistant severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy with the onset of recurrent febrile and/or afebrile seizures that begins in the first year of life in a previously healthy infant.
4. Benign Rolandic epilepsy (benign focal epilepsy): occurs in children aged 4-10 years and is more common in boys. Nocturnal seizures are characterized by facial twitching and aphasia. Resolves with puberty.
Multi-disciplinary teams are involved in advanced epilepsy programs for both children and adults, which include:
1. Epilepsy Disorder Management
2. Video-EEG Monitoring
3. Neuropsychology
4. Psychiatry
5. Genetics
6. Neurostimulation
7. Intraoperative Monitoring for Epilepsy Surgery