Epilepsy Personal Statement

Dzevdet Smajlovic, professor from the Department of Neurology at the University of Tuzla in Bosnia stated that

It is hard to live with Epilepsy because that person with epilepsy has to be careful whenever they do something. The person with Epilepsy can take medicine to help control their chances of a seizure. Anyone can get Epilepsy. One in twenty-six people get Epilepsy, three million Americans have Epilepsy, sixty-five people worldwide have Epilepsy. Each year 200,000 people are diagnosed with Epilepsy. Epilepsy is a negative mutation, because it can make an Epileptic person die from have to many to many seizures, also because it makes new pathways on a Epileptic patient’s brain. As you can see there are a lot of people who have Epilepsy, they can still live their lives to the limit.

When I was three months old I was rushed to the emergency room because I was not responding, my eyes rolled into the back of my head and there were no tears coming from my eyes. My mother was terrified that she could not stop weeping because her baby girl was on the verge of what could be death. Doctors ran tests and went through different diagnosis before epilepsy became the prominent one. As a child I was in and out of doctors and hospitals, a child should not have to grow up like that. I was constantly undergoing tests to figure out the cause of and where the seizures originated from in my brain.

How attention was brought to epilepsy. First, 2.3 million people have epilepsy in America and one in twenty-six people can get epilepsy in their lifetime (“Facts”). The future of research for seizure disorders are focused on brain imaging. Epilepsy can run in the family, can cause head injuries, alcohol abuse (“Multiple”), and driving can be dangerous (Haugen 22).

Our brain is susceptible to many diseases that disrupt normal function, like the disease known as Grand Mal Seizures. Normally, electrical charges are produced by ions in the brain(sodium, potassium, or calcium) and they are released on a regular basis. When released, nerve cells are able to effectively communicate with each other. When a seizure occurs it's due to this process being disturbed. The Ions are damaged cause chemical imbalances which leads to misfired nerve signals. Grand Mal seizures are characterized by three stages. These stages include the Pre-Ictal stage, the Ictal stage(where the seizure occurs), and the Postictal stage. In the first stage, a patient is likely to see a hallucination or some sort of warning sign before the

The documentary’s description of neuroplasticity of seizure patients represents the unknowing and negligent work ethic of modern day scientists and researchers alike. This is confirmed by the lack of treatment of these afflicted individuals who suffer a never ending siege daily with themselves, almost always certain that their pain will end but it is always to no avail.

As a medical practitioner, I was always fascinated by the complexities of the human nervous system. A few years later, during my neurology residency training, I developed special interests in the field of neurodegenerative disorders and dementias. These are largely non-curable disorders

Epilepsy is not what you think. It is a complicated disease, a disease that doesn't just affect one type of person or age. Over fifty million men, women, and children cope with this disease daily. Epilepsy is a mysterious disease to those who are unfamiliar and uneducated about the disease. Many people have preconceived notions about Epileptics. Researching the topic thoroughly, the five preconceived notions I explored have been proven to be false.

(9). Cabral FR, et al. Malnutrition in infancy as a susceptibility factor for temporal lobe epilepsy in adulthood induced by the pilocarpine experimental model. Dev Neurosci , 2011; 33(6):469-78.

For more than a century ago, clinical observations had shown the brain to be multifocal as well as two sided, providing different functions. Knowing that the corpus callosum would have to be severed, in 1961 neurosurgeons Philip Vogel and Joseph Bogen and the rest of the team including Roger Sperry and his graduate student Michael Gazzaniga wondered and communicated about cutting short communications to lower seizure rates by cutting the corpus callosum. The process and technique of this brilliant team of one student and neurologist went on to be know as the “split brain” where personality and intellectuality of the patients seemed to be hardly affected after the surgical procedure was performed. The Split Brain Phenomenon may sound crazy and impossible, however it has been done surgically to help alleviate epileptic seizures. The split brain surgery also referred to as corpus callosotomy is a far- reaching procedure involving the hemisphere, made up of the left and the right side of the brain’s bond within the corpus callosum.

Moreover, focal cortical dysplasia is a malformation of cortical development. Focal cortical dysplasia is a common cause of intractable epilepsy in children and is a frequent cause of epilepsy in adults. However, FCD includes a spectrum of disordered white and gray matter entities that range from mild cortical disruption to complete derangement of cortical lamination. Patients usually in childhood with refractory partial epilepsy, and subsequent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have reveals the area of disordered cortex. Treatment is centered on relieving the seizures and often involves surgical removal of the affected cortex. The defect is thought to arise from a migrational or apoptotic defect occurring early in development. In humans, the

Epilepsy is a disorder characterized by unpredicted seizures. The seizures can affect any part of the body but usually makes its way back to the brain. Epilepsy is one of the oldest documented disorders. The invention of EEG, electroencephalogram, helped advance research in neurosurgery. The EEG helped to track abnormalities of electric activity in the brain in order to diagnose and track activity for people with epilepsy. The only symptom or characteristic of this disorder is epileptic seizures. The seizures are uncontrolled electric activity that usually occurs in the brain. When the brain is effected, other developmental complications are likely to ensue. Therefore, people with epilepsy commonly experience communication difficulties as well

An understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the human brain is crucial with interpreting epilepsy and its relation to the methods of diagnosis and treatment. There are three major divisions in the brain: this includes the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain.

In discussing epilepsy pathology, it is imperative to discuss mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) and focal cortical dysplasia (FCD). As these topics are covered in the Pathophysiology chapter of this book, they will not be covered in detail in this chapter. It is worth noting, however, that it is essential for the epileptologist to be able to readily identify the radiographic findings associated with these disorders, such as decreased hippocampal volume and increased T2/flair signal in MTS, and the transmantle sign in FCD. These findings are not only key in the diagnosis of these disorders, but also in surgical planning and prognostication of surgical outcome, in which MTS has been shown to be significantly where the abnormality can be visualized in MRI as compared to cases in which the MRI is normal. Another important point about MTS is that there is currently an unresolved debate regarding whether the pathological findings are the cause of the seizures or the result of seizures, and many are in the opinion that both of these elements may be at play, suggesting that the disease process is a self-perpetuating cycle that can be disrupted by early and aggressive treatment.

The cure for epilepsy was found at UCLA and was a partnership between Epileptologist and Engineer. When considering the strengths of Tony Fields, the management team are all agreed that after 27 years, he is a certainly a loyal and committed employee. A cursory check of his annual performance evaluations makes clear that his work was routinely indicative of innovation and places him squarely in the pantheon on excellent scientists that proceeded him. He was frequently lauded for creating interfaces and equipment that previously did not