Personal Experience with Epilepsy

I awoke in terror. My sister was shaking uncontrollably. Screaming in fear, I jumped out of the bed we were sleeping in to go get my parents. The next thing I knew I was sitting bedside in my sister's hospital room. This is what I experienced when my sister had her first Epileptic Seizure. Although there were many questions and fears running through my mind, the skills and characteristics I possessed allowed me to live life unaffected.

When I was just seven-years old, I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I’d been having small and frequent seizures my entire life without ever knowing of it until one day when I was shelling walnuts in front of the fireplace. Everything I ever knew was being stripped away from me. I no longer had control over any of the muscles in my body, my ability to speak, my actions, nor my sight. All I could do was relax and wait for my brain to catch up and regain control over my body. My life has been changed by epilepsy, but I will never let it control my life.

It was believed a seizure in the brain caused by the electric current would stimulate the release of neurotransmitters, and would allow the brain to reorganize to function correctly (Nasar). Neurotransmitters are chemical substances that transmit signals that facilitate cell to cell communication throughout the nervous system, and play a key component in the biological paradigm for treatment of schizophrenia. At this early stage of understanding schizophrenia’s pathology, it was believed these chemicals were imbalanced and shocking the brain would force a rebalance of these vital chemicals. Once rebalanced, it was hypothesized the patient would no longer suffer from schizophrenia (Tharyan, 2005). The insight into treating neurotransmitter imbalances in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia began the treatment path to present day antipsychotic pharmaceutical drug therapy. While the actual effects of electroshock therapy on patients with schizophrenia are unclear, it is still used today to treat schizophrenic patients who are resistant to pharmaceutical drug therapy. Electroshock therapy was the utilization of insulin coma therapy and electroshock therapy to treat schizophrenia were successful partly due to the required hospital admittance and doctor administered methodology. In both treatments the patients were required to be admitted into a hospital and were not responsible for administering the treatment themselves. While both treatment methods were viewed as inhumane and

My interviewee was born and raised in Lexington, Nebraska. She was born on July 22, 1944. She was the second youngest of four girls. Her mother had one miscarriage between the first and second child. She grew up close to her sisters and remained close to them until they died. She was closest to the second oldest sister. Her father owned two farms consisting of a total of 600 acres about four miles west of Lexington. Her dad worked the farm on which they grew corn, milo, hay and wheat. They also raised cattle, dairy cows, pigs and chickens. At various times they had one or two horses. Her mother was a full-time homemaker and a “city girl” so spent little time helping out with farm work.

Epilepsy, also called a seizure disorder, is a disease that affects many people around the world. Epilepsy causes people to have epileptic seizures. This illness causes about 50,000 deaths each year and believe it or not, the harm that a person could inflict on themselves is more dangerous that the seizure itself.

I am writing to express my strong interest for the PhD project “Matrix metalloproteinases as new target to prevent epilepsy” that you offer at the Academic Medical Center.

The topic I wish to investigate is epilepsy. Epilepsy is defined as a disorder of the nervous system that can cause people to suddenly become unconscious and to have violent, uncontrolled movements of the body. (Merriam Webster, 2015) This topic is of interest to me because I have a personal involvement with epilepsy. My mother, Jeanette Maya, was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 29, but experienced symptoms since she was 13 years old. “To me, epilepsy is a mental health disorder. If your doctors can find the right medications, it can be controlled. The worst thing about epilepsy for me is my loss of memory.” (Maya, 2015) I want to learn more about this topic to understand what she goes through. Other people need to know about epilepsy

Seizure and epilepsy are problems that occur in the nervous system. In a seizure, it is an abrupt occurrence where the brain is having abnormal electrical activity that becomes uncontrollable. An individual that has a seizure can become unconscious and have a sudden change in their abilities such as talking and moving. Seizures occur in different ways, one way is the tonic-clonic. As a seizure can occur as tonic-clonic, which it is when the body becomes stiff (tonic phase) that then transitions into the clonic phase of where the entire body is experiencing jerking movements. In other occasions, these phases can occur independently without having the other phase.

Epilepsy is a complicated neurological disorder that affects the central nervous system, specifically the brain. It can be caused by the over-excitation of neurons, which occurs when the electrical activity is irregular or when two or more unprovoked seizures arise. The left hemisphere communicates to the right hemisphere by sending signals in order to let it know what’s going on (vice versa). In epilepsy, the signal goes back and forth, resulting in a positive feedback. Positive feedback is a self-amplifying cycle, where a physiological change leads to a greater change in the same direction. As the stimulus goes back and forth, rapidly it gets bigger each time, hence the stimulus process becomes unstable, and an epilepsy can occur. This

My struggle is that my grandpa had epilepsy. For all I remember is that is he had since I was 8 years old. He had treatments and therapy. Just watching him going though all of that made me cry. He was stuffering so much. The few weeks he looked he was getting worse . All his hair was gone, he was skinny, and very pale. He was getting pills that were bigger than his thumb. I was in my room and I heard a big BAM. I looked out my room and saw my grandpa on the floor. He was having a seizure. My grandma and dad were to flip him over. While my mom was calling the paramedics. I turned over my mom and saw with tears rolling down her face. She told me to go to my room. She didn’t want see to see what was happing to him. But the less she knew I saw

Epilepsy is a growing disorder in the world. Many people tend to be unaware they have epilepsy due to no diagnosis or believing their seizures are something simple. The epilepsy community of Texas is in great need due to the increasing costs of medication and medical service, lack of programs for diagnosed children and insignificant increase in education concerning epilepsy. The Epilepsy Foundation of Texas (EFTX) and Epilepsy Foundation of Central and South Texas (EFCST) were established in order to help patients with these types of problems. These two affiliates of the national Epilepsy Foundation serve the entire state of Texas. Both organizations have the same mission: the Epilepsy Foundation leads the fight to stop seizures, find a cure and overcome the challenges created by epilepsy.

‘Epilepsy’ comes from the ancient Greek word which means epilepsia, meaning seizure. According to Epilepsy Foundation of Eastern Pennsylvania, “Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes seizures, which is a change in the normal brain actively.” Seizures which is not a disease resulting from unusual electrical activity in the brain is a significant symptom for epilepsy. Epilepsy seizures last from few seconds to couple of minutes. While all seizures are not related with epilepsy, generalized seizure, Focal seizure, Status epilepticus are significant seizures for epilepsy. Epileptic seizures are formed by abnormal electricity producing from the brain. There are several kinds of epilepsy with different types of seizures. There is no specific age group, race, nationality or social level who are suffers most in epilepsy. People from all ages can affected by epilepsy, specially from two to sixty-five ages are more affected. It is very important for neurologist to early diagnose the type of epilepsy. Patient having multiple epilepsy with variety of seizures, without early diagnosis all of them it is very tough to treatment a patient in an effective way.

Many people experience different medical conditions in their life, along with conditions that can effect them for the rest of their lives. Some people are fortunate enough not to be diagnosed with those medical conditions and are very lucky to experience life without medical burdens. One disorder I found interesting is epilepsy and how it affects the brain in numerous ways. I have had a few encounters when I was in school but never fully understood what was happening to those people with epilepsy. I was always interested in this disorder because people who have epilepsy have to live a different lifestyle and sometimes they don't get to do things others get to. For example I like to play video games on occasion and some of those games have strobe

Chronic diseases affect many individuals in the world. Usually there is no complete cure for a chronic disease. Chronic means that it is long lasting and will occur over a long period of time. There are many various chronic diseases that affect people but a major one is called epilepsy. This disease affects the brain and causes seizures. If a person has a seizure it does not necessarily mean that they have epilepsy. If they have had several seizures, then there is high chance that they do have this disease and would go through a series of tests to confirm. If someone has a seizure the proper way to deal with it is to lay them on their side, put something under their

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorder that is occuring in about 1% of the global population (WHO 2016). Epilepsy is defined as a tendency to have more than two recurrent of unprovoked, unpredictable seizures. Epileptic seizures are brief episodes of involuntary movements that involve the entire body (generalized; tonic-clonic) or one part of the body (partial). These seizures are a result of excessive electrical discharges in specific part of the brain (Shneker and Fountain 2003). Different regions of the brain can serve as a site of such unregulated discharges and form different type of seizures. Seizures can range from short lapses of attention and uncontrolled muscle jerks to severe and prolonged convulsions. Nonetheless, one seizure does not signify epilepsy, but more than two in frame time of two years is epilepsy. However, epileptic seizure is manifested with overlapped signs and symptoms with other disorders and disease, which makes it difficult to define specific seizure to epilepsy.