• HELPING YOUR CHILD COPE WITH EPILEPSY: JUDY’S CASE HISTORY

    Epilepsy 12.07.2011 Comments Off
    Judy told us that seizures had ruined her life. She felt she no longer had friends. She had given up field hockey because she was afraid that a seizure might happen on the field. She now hated school. Even though her seizures had come under control, she was an unhappy young lady. We finally got her to begin to accept her epilepsy by encouraging her to tell the field hockey coach that she had seizures and that they were controlled. Getting her to go back out for the team was the first step in rebuilding her life. Since she could play with the team, she began to realize that she wasn’t different from her teammates. As she felt better about herself, her school work improved and her attitude shifted. When she was able to tell classmates about the seizures and what it was like to feel different, Judy began to realize that the rest of the kids never really felt she was different. She realized that her isolation was self-imposed because she was worried that they might feel that she was different. The problem was within her and not them. Judy had regained her self-esteem.
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  • SOCIETY: A MODEL FOR DISRUPTIONS AND SEIZURES – EEG

    Epilepsy 28.02.2011 No Comments

    Within the brain, communities of cells and areas of the brain interact at their own pace—different paces for different regions. These interactions in the brain are assessed by the EEG (electroencephalogram), a record of the minute amounts of electrical activity that brain cells give off as they relate to each other. The normal EEG appears as a series of wiggly lines, with rhythms seeming to move almost at random across the paper. The electrical activity measured varies from one area of the brain to another. But on rare occasions a “blip” appears among these wiggly lines, a small jolt of electricity, a “spike.” This spike is like the minor episode, such as an automobile accident, that disrupts a community briefly. The brain quickly resumes its activity. Such spikes on the EEG are of little consequence. Only when they recur frequently in one area of the brain is it evident that that particular community of cells is prone to disruption.
    When an electrical disturbance involves one area of the brain it may be visible in twitches of the hand. It may spread throughout one side of the brain, a unilateral seizure, or it may spread throughout the whole brain, causing a generalized seizure. Each of these disturbances is a single seizure, but a single seizure is not epilepsy. Two or more seizures are called epilepsy.
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  • SOCIETY: A MODEL FOR DISRUPTIONS AND SEIZURES – FUNCTION OR BEHAVIOR

    Epilepsy 07.03.2010 No Comments

    Within society there are soapbox orators or fiery speakers who stand on street corners, trying to cause disturbances, urging people to “take action.” Most people walk by. Occasionally, some people stop, listen, and then walk on. Some of the audience may get excited, but action virtually never ensues; they don’t change their behavior and a demonstration does not begin. But on rare occasions, this fiery speaker arouses the surrounding crowd and a march or a demonstration occurs. It will not happen solely because he is an inspired speaker, but because of the interaction between the speaker and the audience. The interaction must be sufficient to rouse the crowd to action. In the brain tiny scars, or small abnormalities, are like the fiery speakers in a crowd. Usually this abnormal tissue causes no disruptions or change in brain function. Just as a crowd may pay no attention to a speaker, so the surrounding cells may fail to respond to the abnormality, and then nothing happens. Change in function, a seizure, requires the interaction of the abnormal area and the community.
    This susceptibility of surrounding neurons is termed “threshold.” To understand a spike or a seizure, we must understand the level of arousal or “threshold” of the surrounding cells. If the brain’s threshold is lowered it is more susceptible to the effects of the “fiery speaker,” the scar, and a seizure is more likely to occur in the community of the brain. If the electrical activity from a scar interacts with mildly aroused surrounding cells, a local disturbance may appear as recurrent spikes on the EEG, but this is not a seizure. A seizure is a paroxysmal electrical discharge of neurons in the brain resulting in alteration of function or behavior.
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