The causes of epilepsy are different in different populations, so prevention should be tailored to different populations and different mechanisms of epilepsy production.
Common causes of epilepsy in children
1, traumatic brain injury is a common cause of epilepsy, but usually falling and touching the scalp or falling out of bed at night does not cause secondary seizures in children. The more serious the trauma, the more likely it is that secondary epilepsy will occur. There is no relationship between the length of coma after trauma and the incidence of pediatric secondary epilepsy, and open cranial injuries have a greater chance of occurring than closed injuries. If the traumatic brain injury combined with cerebrovascular disease intracranial hemorrhage, skull depression fracture, the chance of occurrence of the disease is greater.
2, after birth various encephalitis, meningitis, although in the acute phase of treatment after healing, after a period of time, may also appear seizures. Brain parasitic diseases such as cerebral cysticercosis, cerebral pulmonary schistosomiasis, cerebral schistosomiasis can cause secondary epilepsy in pediatric patients.
3. Various birth injuries, severe asphyxia, intracranial hemorrhage, and forceps assisted delivery may cause brain damage that later leads to secondary epilepsy in pediatric patients.
4, congenital diseases: can be caused by some congenital genetic diseases. The brain has lesions in the brain that can cause seizures, such as cerebral hemangioma and neurofibromatosis. These diseases often have abnormal pigmentation spots or hemangiomas in the skin.
5, the mother during pregnancy, especially early pregnancy infected with rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, or other bacterial infections, the fetus in utero is affected; pregnant women exposed to large amounts of radiation exposure or poisoning can also cause abnormal development of the fetal nervous system. Such as cerebral gyrus malformation, corpus callosum agenesis, and gray matter ectopia, causing secondary epilepsy in pediatric patients.
Prevention of epilepsy in children
1. Avoiding intracranial infections, traumatic brain injury, and pediatric febrile convulsions is the most important measure to prevent epilepsy in children. Eliminate the triggers of seizure symptoms, create a good living environment for patients, make them develop good habits, avoid emotional excitement, mental tension, overwork, special physical and chemical stimulation, etc.
2, to prevent epilepsy, you should first of all avoid an inevitable factor, one of the causes of epilepsy hereditary.
3, prevention of epilepsy is related to the prenatal, delivery and postnatal factors of pregnant women. Therefore, pregnant women should undergo detailed prenatal diagnosis and neonatal screening, and the need to terminate pregnancy can be decided for some serious hereditary diseases that can cause mental retardation and epilepsy, or for fetuses suffering from some hereditary disease with epilepsy, so that the occurrence of this type of epilepsy can be reduced.
Causes of epilepsy in the elderly
1. Intracranial tumors.
In epilepsy that starts after the age of 50-60, besides trauma, supratentorial cerebellar tumors are also one of the most common causes, especially slower growing tumors such as glioma, astrocytoma, meningioma, etc. In addition, tumors from other sites, forming metastatic brain tumors are also causes of seizures in the elderly, and their prevalence is higher than that of young people. Sometimes seizure is the first symptom of tumor, which should be paid attention to.
2. Metabolic disorders.
In middle-aged and elderly people, hypoglycemia produced by pancreatic islet cell tumor is sometimes long-term with seizures as the main manifestation. Severe electrolyte disorders and water intoxication can induce seizures.
3. poisoning.
Acute toxic encephalopathy with lead often has epileptic seizures, and epilepsy may persist for a long time after healing. In addition, aminophylline and isoniazid poisoning can also cause seizures.
4. Brain degenerative diseases.
Brain degenerative diseases such as Pick’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease are the causes of pre-mortem dementia, and their pathological changes are brain atrophy, which can be accompanied by seizures.
5, cerebrovascular disease.
Both acute and chronic cerebrovascular disease can be associated with epilepsy. About 5% of strokes begin to occur around one year after the disease. According to statistics, cerebrovascular disease, including cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction, hypertensive encephalopathy and vasculitis, may cause seizures in 30% to 80% of seizures in the elderly.
6, brain infection.
In the acute phase of various encephalitis, meningitis and brain abscesses, the stimulation of congestion, edema, toxins and exudation can cause seizures. After healing, scars and adhesions can be the cause of epilepsy.
How can the elderly prevent epilepsy?
Diet is the mainstay in preventing epilepsy in the elderly. A reasonable diet is self-evident for human health, especially for epilepsy treatment. A reasonable diet can supplement various nutrients that patients lack and adjust the nutrition to reach a balance. The side effects of antiepileptic drugs can be offset. The most important thing is to make sure that you are not picky about what you eat, and that you are taking in the right amount of nutrients.