1. What is epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a medical term, commonly known as “goat horns”, “sheep epilepsy”, Chinese medicine called it “lamb madness”, “piggyback madness”, now Chinese medicine named “epilepsy”. It is a chronic brain disease caused by a variety of causes that stimulate the brain cells and cause abnormal (excessive) discharge of these cells, resulting in abnormal (abnormal) brain function. There are many abnormal sensations and manifestations (symptoms) during the onset of the disease, and the combination of these manifestations is called epilepsy. It is important to note that.
(1) A true seizure must have three distinctive features (characteristics) that can serve as landmarks, namely, a burst of seizures (paroxysmal), a short duration for each seizure (transient), and essentially the same manifestation for each seizure (stereotypic).
(2) Most epilepsies are characterized by three additional peculiarities (features), namely confusion (loss of consciousness), abnormal EEG (abnormality), and muscle contractions (spasms, convulsions) that are beyond the patient’s own control.
(3) Muscle contractions are characterized as mostly obvious, individually subtle, and occasionally difficult to detect. Strictly speaking, only muscle contractions without concomitant neurological abnormalities cannot be called epilepsy. On the contrary, certain epilepsies (such as petit mal seizures), although there is a sudden onset of transient confusion, there is not necessarily an obvious muscle jerk.
2. Are there many people with epilepsy?
The prevalence of epilepsy around the world is 0.3%~0.7% in developed countries; up to 1.5%~3.5% in developing countries; the prevalence in China is about 0.7%, and it is estimated that there are 9 million people with epilepsy, accounting for 1/5~1/6 of patients worldwide, with an increase of about 400,000 people every year.
3. Is the onset of epilepsy related to age?
The age of first onset of epilepsy is mostly in adolescence. In primary epilepsy, 1-5 years old and 13-14 years old are the risk childhood years. At this age, about 45% of people with occult (latent) epilepsy develop the disease. Later, there is a gradual decrease with increasing age. In some cases, the number of seizures gradually decreases, even without special treatment, and even no more seizures occur. By the age of 40 to 50, there is no difference from normal people. Of course, the “root of the disease” is still hidden in the body, which can be detected by EEG, and the attack will occur when encountering special circumstances. Therefore, patients should be alert.
4. Does a person with transient confusion necessarily have epilepsy?
Sudden, transient confusion is an important manifestation of epilepsy, but it cannot be reversed to say that “a person with transient confusion must have epilepsy”. For example, the “fainting” (medical term for fainting) that occurs in some patients after a muscle shot is not epilepsy. Conversely, is there any epilepsy with clear consciousness? A: Yes. For example, if a person has a limited seizure, he or she is clearly conscious. Example 2: To compare the relationship between confusion and epilepsy, sheep are four-legged animals, but it is obviously wrong to think that “any four-legged animal is a sheep”. The reason is that horses, donkeys, cows, pigs and deer are also four-legged animals.
5. What is meant by “seizure”?
The difference between epilepsy and other diseases is that only during a seizure can there be a distinctive performance. In general, there is no difference from normal people on the surface. Therefore, doctors often call epilepsy a sudden onset (seizure) disorder. There are three most common forms of seizure onset (seizures): grand mal, petit mal, and psychomotor seizures. What does it mean to have a seizure? A seizure is a sensory, motor, or psychogenic onset (seizure) that occurs when a different cause acts (stimulates) a part of the superficial (cortical) layer of the brain, resulting in an excessive (over), overly (hyper) synchronized, sudden, and brief discharge of a group of nerve cells in the brain here. Doctors call each of these abnormal performance processes, a seizure.
6. What is meant by refractory epilepsy?
Refractory epilepsy is also called intractable epilepsy. Currently, there is no completely unified standard. Most medical doctors consider refractory epilepsy to be refractory if the following 5 criteria are met.
(1) Antiepileptic drug blood concentration control within the effective range, after more than 2 years, systematic antiepileptic drug treatment, still can not control seizures.
(2) Seizures have been present for at least 3 years (duration of disease).
(3) The number of seizures is at least 4 times per month.
(4) Those who have severe disability due to excessive (frequent) seizures, which affect work, study and life.
(5) There is no progressive (progressive) disease in the brain after examination, and the latter is an occupying lesion.
7. Is there headache epilepsy?
Is there headache epilepsy? Yes, there is. There is a special form of headache that is called epileptic headache. It has only a headache and may never experience a simultaneous, distinct convulsive seizure. It is only a sudden headache that goes away again immediately. Sometimes, the headache can also last for quite a long time in bursts; it is called epileptic headache (1) because typical epileptic waves can appear on the EEG at the onset or at ordinary times by means of flash stimulation and (2) because the attack can be relieved or stopped by taking antiepileptic drugs. The difference with migraine is that migraineurs do not have epileptic waves on the EEG.
8. Is it epilepsy if the whole body or a part of the body occasionally trembles during hazy sleep?
It is common to have occasional tremors when you seem to be asleep (hazy) and you do not care. However, if it occurs too often and too frequently, it should be treated as a suspicious sign of epilepsy and should be seen by a specialist.
9. Do seizures occur more often at night?
Do seizures occur at night? It is true that more patients with epilepsy have seizures at night after going to sleep than during the day; some patients only have seizures at night after going to sleep, but as the disease progresses, they also have seizures during the day, and the reason for this is not clear. It is difficult to say whether this inference is correct. However, this should be noted in order to detect certain epilepsy in time.
10. What diseases may be predicted by seizures after middle age?
Usually after middle age, seizures are reduced, but not necessarily absent. People with no history of epilepsy who suddenly have seizures that get worse after middle age should be alerted to the fact that the cause may be a tumor, parasite or other stimulus to the brain. You should go to the neurology department of a regular hospital to see a doctor and not to be careless and paralyzed.
11. What does latent epilepsy mean?
A person who has a tendency to have seizures (and has not had any seizures yet) is “safe” in daily life, but will have a seizure when stimulated by extreme mental stress, and this is called “latent epilepsy”. This is called “latent epilepsy”. In fact, if you check the EEG, you can often find that it is abnormal. Latent epilepsy is not harmful when it does not develop, but when it develops under extreme stimulation, it can have serious consequences. For example, an airplane pilot who is normally healthy and has a “normal” physical examination (but an abnormal EEG). In the event of an extreme emergency in the air, this latent epilepsy may seize, resulting in a tragic plane crash.
12. If you have epilepsy since birth, does it have to be genetic epilepsy?
If you have epilepsy at birth, does it have to be genetic epilepsy? Not necessarily. Some of them are caused during the mother’s pregnancy, such as early pregnancy, wrongly taking certain drugs, which can cause congenital abnormal fetal form (malformation); certain viral infections, especially rubella, syphilis and meningitis in early pregnancy, can cause fetal brain damage; abnormal position of the placenta in the uterus may also affect fetal growth and development; impact on the lower abdomen of a pregnant woman can also damage the fetal brain and cause intrauterine epilepsy. In utero epilepsy can occur; severe lack of oxygen or accumulation of toxins in the blood can damage the fetal brain and cause seizures after birth. Therefore, the critical period is during pregnancy and around the time of birth. Some epilepsy is caused by carelessness during birth and incorrect delivery methods. Birth injuries, obstruction of the infant’s airway, and respiratory arrest are the most common causes of brain damage and later development of epilepsy in infants. In the case of epilepsy, it is inherited from one generation to the next, and the structure and physiological functions of the organism are passed on from one generation to the next. If epilepsy is hereditary, it means that it may be passed from one generation to the next.
13. Why is it important to diagnose epilepsy carefully?
The reason is that 15%-30% of the patients seen by epilepsy specialists are not true epileptics. Once incorrectly diagnosed, not only does it delay the treatment of other diseases, but it can also bring heavy physical, psychological and economic damage to patients and their families because it is incorrectly treated as epilepsy.
14.How to understand epilepsy correctly?
Because of the suddenness, seizure and unpredictability of epilepsy, and the frequent and complicated seizures, people have regarded these intuitive phenomena as “divine possession and soul disorder” for thousands of years. In fact, this view is not scientific. However, the true scientific understanding of epilepsy as a chronic disease of the brain due to multiple etiologies is only 100 years old. It is indeed difficult to challenge a millennium-old fallacy with a hundred years of truth. This requires: epilepsy specialists to explain patiently and in detail, taking into account the “three treatments” – “treatment of the disease”, “treatment of people” and “treatment of the heart”; patients and their families must understand scientifically and correctly that epilepsy is a curable disease and actively cooperate with doctors in treatment; and the whole society should care for and understand patients and support and popularize the cause of antiepilepsy.
15. Why is the term “genetic epilepsy” rarely used anymore?
In the past, some people called primary epilepsy (also) hereditary epilepsy. If you say that someone has hereditary epilepsy, it can affect his/her self-esteem, self-confidence and the reality of marriage. Therefore, the term hereditary epilepsy is no longer used in order to avoid negative social consequences for slowing down the process. In addition, convulsions caused by tetanus, hypoglycemia, etc. are also considered secondary epilepsy. Strictly speaking, secondary epilepsy is not a separate epilepsy, it is simply a specific manifestation of a disease. For example, a brain tumor produces convulsions. It is only one of the many manifestations (symptoms) of brain tumors. As can be seen above, some epilepsies are treated as primary epilepsy until the primary disease is found, and corrected to secondary disease epilepsy after the primary disease is found.