Impaired Consciousness: A Literature Review

Seizure disorders, according to the Mayo Clinic (2015), affect approximately 1 in 26 people in the United States. Persistent, or chronic, seizures result from a condition called epilepsy, a neurological disorder of the central nervous system. It can affect anyone regardless of age, but is more common during early childhood and after age 60. Given the number of people that seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, affect, it becomes helpful to gain a foundational understanding of the disease, including some of the causes, symptoms, and treatments available.

The above mentioned procedures are known as brain stimulation therapy where electrical and magnetic impulses are administered to the patient. Moreover, the procedures are completely painless and last only a few minutes. The treatments are once a week, usually lasting six to eight weeks. Nowadays, with the advancements in medical and psychological treatment, a combination of both prescription medicine and psychological help, has shown the greatest

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.

An underlying problem that disrupts the brain's electrical activity. These are called physiologic non-epileptic seizures.

Cortical stimulation therapy. This stimulates your brain with electrical currents to make it work better.

The constant firing of neurons in the brain during normal everyday actions is called electrical brain activity. Seizures are changes in the brain's electrical activity, which can "cause dramatic, noticeable symptoms or even no symptoms at all (healthline.com)." During a seizure, nerve cells leave their regular positions where they delivered orders from the brain to other parts of the body. The neurons fire in

Each of the types also present different clinically. There are two main types of epilepsy. The first type is generalized epilepsy and is not tied to a specific area of the brain, and the second is focal or partial epilepsy which begins in a certain lobe and highly developed areas. Generalized epilepsy is then further broken down into idiopathic and symptomatic. During idiopathic seizures the cause of the episode is unknown, and the brain is behaving normally between seizures. Whereas, during symptomatic seizures there is a known cause of the seizure which is due to a structural brain abnormality (“Pediatric Epilepsy & Seizures”,

To begin with, according to an article written by Lyons, MD, “Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has developed during the past 20 years as a remarkable treatment option for several

There have been many silent killers that have concerned mankind since the dawn of time. It is underestimated and underdiagnosed but it is the most frequently prevalent neurological disorders. Epilepsy and all its forms is as much of a concern today as it was thousands of years ago. Our oldest description that defines the symptoms of epileptic seizures was written two thousand years ago BC (Magiorkinis E1, 2010). Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive and abnormal nerve cell activity in the brain. This puts them at an increased risk of death due to the brains abnormal control of secondary organ systems. The risk increases as people age. Worldwide the overall percentage of epileptic diagnosis encompasses nearly three percent of the population

People uneducated about Epilepsy may have confused thoughts on what it really is. People have these "notions," which are partly or entirely not true. So, throughout this research paper, these notions will be proven untrue, mostly by factual information given by

According to World Health Organisation (2017), around 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy. Unfortunately, epilepsy cannot be cured, but could be controlled by pharmacological or electrical treatment based on seizure prediction (Moghim & Corne, 2014). Since EEG has advantages such as speed, high time resolution and non-invasive natures, it maintains one of the most frequently used tools in predicting epilepsy (Hasan et al. 2017).

Staggering numbers were reported in a recent study estimating that over fifty million people world-wide have been given the diagnosis of epilepsy. (Chang et.al 2013) Doctors have estimated that there are at least forty different types of seizure disorders, and patients can indeed have more than one disorder. This makes the management of symptoms within patients difficult at times. However, there is fortunately great news on the horizon. Epilepsy is now being recognized as a brain disorder that is not just seen for its seizure activity, it’s also being recognized for the neurological, psychological, cognitive, and social consequences that this disorder comes with. (Mula and Cock2014)

Deep brain stimulation is the use of electrical impulses to a deep area within a patient’s brain that is used to treat certain severe psychiatric disorders. Small electrodes are implanted into the brain in an invasive surgery, a series of sessions are held to determine the ideal settings for the execution of electrical currents to the brain, and then a pulse device is placed into the patient’s chest that connect and send electrical currents to the electrodes in the brain. These electrical currents alter the activity in an area of the brain, described by Dr. Gupta as Area 25, a “junction box” for mood-controlling brain circuits. By altering the activity in this area of the brain, doctors can alter the mood of a patient while using the patient’s

Prediction of epileptic seizures at an early stage increases the effect of medication and more patients can be treated accordingly thus improving the quality of life of the patients. For the proper treatment, physicians need to know if and when the seizure occurs as many medical decisions depend on detailed information about the seizure type and its origin in the brain. Electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring is the golden standard for the diagnosis of epilepsy. An EEG investigation provides the aforementioned information about the continuous unusual nerve cell activity in the brain and a detailed seizure characterization in order to resolve therapeutic options, particularly in the absence of a response to medication. During an EEG investigation, the physicians place electrodes on your scalp which sense and record the electrical motion taking place in your brain which is then examined to find unusual activity, which may signal epilepsy. The Fig-2 shows a typical EEG recording setup wherein the electrodes are placed on the