Concept

Epilepsy

Overview

Epilepsy is a group of neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activity in the brain that can cause a variety of symptoms, ranging from brief lapses of awareness or muscle jerks to prolonged convulsions. These episodes can result in physical injuries, either directly, such as broken bones, or through causing accidents. The diagnosis of epilepsy typically requires at least two unprovoked seizures occurring more than 24 hours apart. In some cases, it may be diagnosed after a single unprovoked seizure if clinical evidence suggests a high risk of recurrence. Isolated seizures that occur without recurrence risk or are provoked by identifiable causes are not considered indicative of epilepsy.

The underlying cause is often unknown, but epilepsy can result from brain injury, stroke, infections, tumors, genetic conditions, or developmental abnormalities. Epilepsy that occurs as a result of other issues may be preventable. Diagnosis involves ruling out other conditions that can resemble seizures, and may include neuroimaging, blood tests, and electroencephalography (EEG).

Most cases of epilepsy, approximately 69%, can be effectively controlled with anti-seizure medications, and inexpensive treatment options are widely available. For those whose seizures do not respond to drugs, other approaches, such as surgery, neurostimulation or dietary changes, may be considered. Not all cases of epilepsy are lifelong, and many people improve to the point that treatment is no longer needed.

As of 2024, approximately 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, with nearly 80% of cases occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The burden of epilepsy in low-income countries is more than twice that in high-income countries, likely due to higher exposure to risk factors such as perinatal injury, infections, and traumatic brain injury, combined with limited access to healthcare. In 2021, epilepsy was responsible for an estimated 140,000 deaths, an increase from 125,000 in 1990.

Epilepsy is more common in both children and older adults. About 5–10% of people will have an unprovoked seizure by the age of 80. The chance of experiencing a second seizure within two years after the first is around 40%.

People with epilepsy may be treated differently in various areas of the world and experience varying degrees of social stigma due to the alarming nature of their symptoms. In many countries, people with epilepsy face driving restrictions and must be seizure-free for a set period before regaining eligibility to drive. The word epilepsy is from Ancient Greek ἐπιλαμβάνειν, 'to seize, possess, or afflict'.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

The disproportion between the hysterical symptom of years duration and the former cause is the same as the one we are regularly accustomed to see in the traumatic neurosis. Very often they are experiences of childhood which have established more or less intensive morbid phenomena for all succeeding years.
Sigmund Freud, Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses
Names Epilepsy.
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Tetanus produced by the lesion of a nerve; Dr. Brown-Séquard thinks it highly probable that hydrophobia is a phenomenon of a similar nature: Morbid changes in the nutrition of the brain and spinal cord, manifesting themselves by epilepsy, chorea, hysteria, and other diseases, occasioned by lesion of some of the nervous extremities in remote places, as by worms, calculi, tumours, carious bones, and in some cases even…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
Opens on Epilepsy; names Epilepsy.
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Ophthalmies, too, at length supervene; these being of a hard and violent nature, and soon ending in rupture of the eyes; persons under thirty years of age are liable to severe bleedings at the nose in summer; attacks of epilepsy are rare but severe. Such people are likely to be rather long-lived; their ulcers are not attended with serous discharges, nor of a malignant character; in disposition they are rather…
Hippocrates, The genuine works of Hippocrates, Vol. 1
States what Epilepsy is; opens on Epilepsy.
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Epilepsy

Overview

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