EPILEPSY

Epilepsy

Epilepsy

At least one person in every two hundred has epilepsy. A chronic disorder in which nerve cells of the brain from time to time release electrical impulses, causing a temporary malfunction of the nerve cells of the brain. This sudden disturbance in the nerve cells causes seizures. A very old disease mentioned in the Code of Hammurabi, epilepsy is also the subject of the earliest of scientific work to survive, The Sacred Disease, attributed to the Greek Hippocrates. The most prominent feature of epilepsy is the seizure; That is not to say that seizures occur in epileptics only. The seizure is a complex symptom, with many varieties, causes, and treatments.

The word originating from the ancient Greek word "epilepsia", meaning seizure, epilepsy has been recognized throughout history. The disease can be traced back to references made to the disease in literature written hundreds and hundreds of years ago. For example, in ancient Egypt, epilepsy was considered a sacred disease because of the belief that a god had entered the person. But by the medieval times, epilepsy was called the "falling sickness" and was thought to be caused by demons possessing the person.1 Today, however, we have come to know a great deal more about the medical nature of the disease, as it has continued to be a threat to our very existence. Today's knowledge of the disease can better answer to the patient's needs than it did just a few years ago. New discoveries about the disease and advancements in how to deal with the disease are being made everyday. Today, epilepsy and seizures are classified into their many different forms, some suggests as to the origins and the causes of the disease have been provided, and a wide range of diagnosis and treatment options are offered.

Virtually anyone can have a seizure under the right circumstances; those who experience a seizure have a low seizure threshold. . Seizures can have many causes, brain injury, poisoning, head trauma and stroke, are some examples, however, epileptic seizures are generally reoccurring without treatment. Originating from the central nervous system, most seizures start from around the site of brain injury. At the point where the injury occurred, brain neurons are destroyed; the nearby neurons remain functioning, but crippled. This point of destroyed neurons is called the epileptic focus, the neurons within a focus are electrically unstable, and lacking powers of inhibition they exert an electrical influence. While one damaged neuron is far to small to effect the brain, neurons are organized into groups of several hundreds of thousands. These groups of neurons all discharge electricity together, causing surrounding neurons to discharge as well and those neurons cause the neurons around it to discharge in a dominoes effect situation. The result of this domino effect is a seizure discharge; a neural impulse that rapidly runs out of control and causes such disruption to normal brain activity that a fit develops. While this is the general way that seizure discharge spreads, seizure discharge spreads differently for every type ...