Understanding Epilepsy

Anxiety is an emotional uneasiness associated with the anticipation of loss or danger. Unrecognized anxiety symptoms may lead to further suffering of the patient and his family. Children and adolescents with epilepsy may in particular be prone to anxiety. The unpredictability of seizures and the stigma associated with epilepsy may predispose children and adolescents to anxiety and negative affective responses.

Partial seizures that arise from structural abnormality in the brain may be described as symptomatic epilepsy. Common causes of epilepsy may be inherited, congenital malformations present at birth, undetected brain tumors, acquired metabolic diseases like low blood glucose concentration or low serum calcium, chronic renal failure and certain infectious diseases like bacterial meningitis or encephalitis.

The most common form used to determine epilepsy is EEG or electroencephalography. There may be a gap of some years between the first seizure and the diagnosis of epilepsy. Most patients who developed epilepsy were treated. There are epileptic conditions that may take a well circumscribed short lived course. This implies that treatment might be curative among some individuals.

However seizures may acquire a more regular circadian rhythm during the illness and appear preferentially during sleep. Another peculiar form of partial epilepsy has been determined by which seizures appear almost exclusively during sleep. This is what we call as nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy (NFLE).

NFLE seizures are characterized by complex motor and behavioral activity consisting of cycling or kicking activity of all four limbs or rocking of the trunk. Sometimes this is manifested by semi-purposeful repetitive movements mimicking sexual or defensive activity. The patient may vocalize, scream or swear during the occurrence of the seizure. The violent behavior most of the time may cause the patient to fall out of bed or physically hurt self. Then the patient just normally goes back to sleep again. Sleep may facilitate epileptic seizures in some forms of epilepsy.

When you see the signs especially during sleep you need not be afraid that it is some kind of spiritual or suspect of bad experience or something. Just bring your loved one to the doctor for an appropriate diagnosis. Early intervention is preferred for this type of illness.