How Epilepsy Affects The Nervous System

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Kellie Brouillette EDCI 2700 EPILEPSY Epilepsy is a neurological condition, which affects the nervous system. Epilepsy is also known as a seizure disorder. It is usually diagnosed after a person has had at least two seizures that were not caused by some known medical condition like alcohol withdrawal or extremely low blood sugar. Sometimes, according to the International League Against Epilepsy, epilepsy can be diagnosed after one seizure, if a person has a condition that places them at high risk for having another. A seizure is a sudden surge of electrical activity in the brain that usually affects how a person feels or acts for a short time. Seizures are not a disease in themselves. Instead, they are a symptom of many different…show more content…
You are twice as likely to have another seizure if you have a known brain injury or other type of brain abnormality. If you do have two seizures, there's about an 80% chance that you'll have more. If your first seizure occurred at the time of an injury or infection in the brain, you are more likely to develop epilepsy than if you had not had a seizure in that situation. More seizures are also likely if your doctor finds abnormalities on a neurological examination; a set of tests of the functioning of your nervous system that is performed in the doctor's office. Another thing that can help your doctor predict whether you will have more seizures is an EEG, electroencephalogram (e-LEK-tro-en-SEF-uh-LOG-ram), a test in which wires attached to your scalp record your brain waves. Certain patterns on the EEG are typical of epilepsy. If your brain waves show patterns of that type, you are about twice as likely to develop epilepsy as someone who does not have those…show more content…
The doctor will ask for a complete description of what happened. Often it is important to bring along a family member or someone else who saw the seizure and can tell the doctor what happened, since the person who had the spell may have been unconscious. Even if the person thinks that he or she was aware, there may be important aspects of the spell that are not recalled. The doctor will want to hear not only a description of the seizure itself, but also the story of the events leading up to it and the after-effects that followed it. The doctor then will thoroughly examine the person and probably will order several tests. The doctor may have enough information on the first visit for treatment to be recommended and started, but sometimes this will happen only after further test results are

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