Types, Symptoms And Treatment For Seizures

Mild or severe seizures indicate about an underlying significant health problem.  They arise whenever there is a change in the patterns of electrical activity in the brain. Generally, symptoms include loss of control and violent shaking. If one is suffering from such seizures, it is important to learn about them in a consummate way.

 

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Kinds Of Seizures:

Non-Epileptic: They are treatable and go away, after a while. Their occurrence is majorly due to an illness or a head injury.

Partial: These are also called Jacksonian, focal and temporal lobe seizures. They occur repeatedly in cases of epilepsy and only in one part of the brain. Body’s only one side is affected as a result of this.

  

Generalized: Affect the entire body by occurring on both the sides of brain. These include petit mal, tonic-clonic and grand mal which may occur in cases of epilepsy. Petit mal involves the person staring off into blank space for multiple seconds, losing attentiveness for this span of time.

Symptoms accompanying a seizure

These last from a few to fifteen seconds at a time. Sometimes symptoms may precede the seizure and these include:

·         Headaches

·         Sensations of being out of body

·         Dizziness

·         Changes in vision  

The symptoms which indicate that the person is going through a seizure are:

·         Rapid eye movements and sudden mood swings

·         Loss of control of bowel or bladder function

·         Teeth clenching and tongue biting

·         Drooling and frothing from the mouth

·         Uncontrolled muscle spasms

·         Confusion and loss of consciousness

There can be several potential causes behind seizures. Some of them are infections in the brain (like meningitis), alcohol withdrawal, epilepsy, unbalanced electrolytes in body, drug abuse and withdrawal, head trauma, organ failure (like liver and kidneys), epilepsy, stroke, fever, head trauma etc. They can also be genetically inherited along with the underlying cause.

Diagnosis and Treatment Options for seizures:

Treatment majorly depends on the underlying cause and the options include medications, surgeries, nerve stimulations, and ketogenic diets (special diet for patients). Devices like RNS System by Neuropace can respond to and monitor brain activity are also helpful at the time of treatment.

During clinical trials of RNS System, people who were being treated with this technology showed significant results in terms of seizure reduction in the long term, improved quality of life and improved language and memory. 

 

It begins by examination of complete medical history followed by several tests for accurate diagnosis. Some of these tests include a toxicology screening (commonly called tox-screen) test for detecting toxins, poisons and drugs, blood test to look for any electrolyte imbalances in the blood and spine tapping test for ruling out the chances of infection. There are also electroencephalography tests, MRIs and CT scans which may help the doctor in diagnosis.

Companies like NeuroPace Inc are striving hard to develop novel technologies for better diagnosis and treatment of seizures. It seems not very long when everybody will be able to lead seizure-free and healthy lives. One can parlay the internet to know more about seizures.