Seizures in adults

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Diagnosis and emergency management “His neck turns left, his hands and feet are tense and his eyes wide open, and from his mouth froth is flowing without his having any consciousness.” This description is in a 4000 year old manuscript from the Middle East and the author proposed that the victim was being punished by the god of the moon.1 It is now considered to be the earliest account of an epileptic seizure. Today, people with seizures still face stigma around the world and most do not receive medical treatment.2 In the United States, almost two thirds of the population do not know what to do if someone has a seizure, and some think seizures could be contagious, delaying first aid.3 However, seizures are a common presentation in emergency departments. In the United Kingdom, around 1 in 20 people will have a seizure during their life and 1 in 100 will develop epilepsy, in all ethnicities and in both sexes.4 Epilepsy is commonest in infancy, owing to birth or genetic causes, and in old age, because of stroke or trauma. Up to 18% of adults with active epilepsy attend an emergency department in a given year, and in about half, the condition is serious enough to warrant admission to hospital.5 Doctors should know how to manage seizures not just for their own clinical practice but also to help educate people with epilepsy, their relatives or carers, other healthcare professionals, and the public. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) is a professional organisation that has developed the most widely used classification system for seizures.67 A seizure is defined as a “transient occurrence of signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain.” Another term for seizure is “ictus,” from …

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: