News for the ‘Epilepsy’ Category
“Jenny, although only nine, had many long-range questions: ‘Do big girls have these seizures? Can they have babies?’ Things like that. I arranged for Karen to have lunch with us. And the two just talked. They talked about seizures, about medication, about boys. What Karen provided for her was something I couldn’t provide; she was the role model Jenny needed. Actually, it was as good for Karen as for Jen; it provided Karen with a sense of self-esteem, a sense of helping.
“You know, out of this counseling come many good things, and sometimes it takes awhile to see all of them. Another young lady who had a rough time as a teenager, both with her very frequent mixed seizures and with an overprotective father, is now married and has a baby. The family recently had a real scare when they thought she had cancer. They really panicked, but Greta remained cool. She handled it far better than her folks. The diagnosis proved wrong, and when we talked about it recently she said, ‘You know, I went through so much in learning to deal with my epilepsy that it made me a much stronger individual.’
“One of the best things about this job is the friends you make with the kids. They’ll call you up years later, as Greta did, just to say ‘Hi!’ or to tell you they’re engaged, whatever. They’ve become my friends.
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Edited: July 9th, 2011
“Some of the new, state-run pre-school early-intervention programs like Child Find are helpful in getting the parents of handicapped children, and the infant or young child himself, involved with appropriate stimulation and physical therapy. Schools now are taking these handicapped children at a young age, at least for part of the day. These programs give the parents some hope, some respite, and more realistic expectations about their child’s progress and future.
“While counseling is fun and rewarding when you’re dealing with a teenager like Karen (who will be a winner if only she’ll get her act together), at times counseling can be even more challenging and more rewarding when you have a family with a severely-damaged child. Just think what you have accomplished when you help them to cope, to grow with the situation, to make the best of it, whatever that is, for themselves and for their child. If you look at the alternatives, such as the family breaking up, then you will have a single parent facing that future alone. Or the child could end up in a foster home with the family disintegrated. If you look at these bleak alternatives, then anything you can do to help the family to cope and to make a reasonable life for themselves and for their child is a success. If you define success in these terms, yes, we are usually, but not always, successful.”
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Edited: May 4th, 2011
In someone with established epilepsy, the EEG between seizures may also show abnormal discharges which are not apparent to the doctor in terms of observed behaviour, nor are they associated with any change perceived by the person with epilepsy. Although the abnormal discharges of the EEG are clearly a fragment, as it were, of a seizure, they are not usually regarded as seizures. Our definition of an epileptic seizure, therefore, is a paroxysmal discharge of cerebral nerve cells apparent to the person and/or an observer.
Anything which increases the excitability of a group of nerve cells may cause a paroxysmal discharge. For example certain gases or chemicals, developed for use in war, are designed to cause disabling seizures amongst the enemy.
Does epilepsy stop? There is one encouraging point that all those with epilepsy must remember—the number of people who have epilepsy at any one time is much less than those who have had epilepsy in the past. An approximate estimate of the average duration of epilepsy can be obtained by dividing the average prevalence by the average annual incidence. This gives a figure of about 11 years. However artificial this figure may be, it underlines the point that epilepsy can and does usually stop. A great number of people with epilepsy fare better.
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Edited: April 28th, 2009