Epilepsy Awareness Day Masterpost (26th March, 2022)
Welcome everyone! Today we celebrate and bring awareness for Epilepsy Awareness Day! Many of us have heard the word epilepsy, but who knows what it actually means?
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder in which brain activity becomes abnormal (imbalanced) causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations and sometimes loss of awareness. In order to be diagnosed with epilepsy one must have at least two seizures without a known trigger that happens at least 24 hours apart.
Diagnosis can be done through a neurological exam, blood tests, MRIs, CT scans, lumbar puncture, and electroencephalogram (measure’s brain’s electrical activity).
There are three main categories of seizures: generalized onset, focal onset, and unknown onset. Let's take a look at what each means:
- Generalized Onset seizures: These are seizures that affect both sides of the brain or group of cells are affected at the same time. An example of this is a tonic-clonic, also known as grand mal seizure. This is the one most people know as the person usually has violent muscle contractions and loss of consciousness. Absence and atonic seizures are also forms of generalized onset seizures.
- Focal Onset seizures: These are broken into two subcategories - aware and impaired seizures. Focal onset aware seizures occur when a person is awake and aware that they are having a seizure (used to be called simple partial seizure). Focal onset impaired awareness is when a person is confused or their awareness state is affected during a focal seizure (used to be called complex partial seizure).
- Unknown Onset seizures are diagnosed when the beginning of a seizure is unknown. It can be unknown if the trigger cannot be identified or if it’s not witnessed by anyone (i.e. seizures happen at night or in a person who lives alone). It is only later on as more information is learned is it possible to be diagnosed as a focal or generalized seizure.
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Epilepsy can be caused by many different things such as genetics, head trauma, brain damage, stroke, and tumors. People have a higher risk of having epilepsy if they are a child or an older adult, family history of epilepsy, head injuries, drug/alcohol use, vascular diseases, dementia, and brain infections.
Some common signs of a seizure are staring, jerking movements, stiffening of body, loss of consciousness, breathing difficulties, loss of bowel/bladder control, appearing confused or unaware, rapid eye blinking, and falling.
To learn more about Epilepsy as we spread awareness today, visit https://www.epilepsy.com/ or click Here.
References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/epilepsy/symptoms-causes/syc-20350093
https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/types-seizures
This is the masterpost for the event, and the links to the posts will be added once made!
Posts
Icebreaker: Do you have or know someone who has epilepsy?
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Many thanks to @wonderfulrainbow817 for drafting this, you're such a blessing to our community❤️