Hey, what day is it today? Wednesday, 26th March you said? Oh, well, you know what that means – Happy Purple Day, everyone! Today is Purple Day for World Epilepsy Awareness and ONE Intervention is here to celebrate it with you.
In honour of this day, we’ve prepared this article to give you a brief run-down of epilepsy and increase awareness for this neurological disorder. We’ll cover:
- What it is
- Its symptoms, causes and risk factors
- Myths and facts about it
- And how you can help on this special day!
Feeling fantastic about this? Grape (ha, great, see what we did there?), let’s go!
What Is Epilepsy?
First things first, let’s clarify what epilepsy actually is. Epilepsy, 癫痫 in Chinese, is a neurological disorder – specifically, a seizure disorder.
Basically, epilepsy is characterised by “recurring, unprovoked” seizures due to surges of electrical activity in the brain.
💡Fun fact! The famous Greek philosopher Hippocrates was the first to think that epilepsy started in the brain.
Wait, but what is a seizure exactly?
A seizure is a surge of abnormal and excessive electricity in the brain. This interrupts the normal electrical function in the brain. As a result, a person’s manner of speech and actions will be affected to varying degrees, depending on how severe the seizure is.
In brief, there are different types of seizures:
- Focal seizures, which affect either the left or right side of the brain, and
- Generalised seizures, which involve both sides of the brain.
Within each broad category, there are several more subtypes of seizures. For example, there are simple and complex focal seizures, and many different types of generalised seizures.
To keep things simple, we’ll just stick with seizures for the rest of the article. But if you’re interested in further reading, Nationwide Children’s goes into considerable detail for each type of seizure in each category.
You may be wondering what the difference between a seizure and epilepsy is. To be clear, suffering a single seizure does not mean that one has epilepsy. However, repeated seizures seemingly without any cause could be a symptom of epilepsy.
💡Fun fact: Did you know that Purple Day was chosen by 8-year old Cassidy Megan, who had epilepsy and wanted to spread awareness of the disorder? She chose purple because lavender is recognised as the international flower for epilepsy!
What Are The Causes, Symptoms and Risk Factors of Epilepsy?
The Causes
In about half of the affected people with epilepsy, there has been no known specific cause. Even in the remaining half, there’s no one single cause of epilepsy. There are, however, several various factors of epilepsy. These include (but are of course not limited to):
- Genetic influence
- Head trauma
- Infections (like meningitis or HIV)
There are also some environmental factors that could trigger seizures in people with epilepsy. We’re sure you’ve heard of flashing lights being one of these, but there are definitely more:
- Alcohol
- Illicit drug use
- Stress, lack of sleep, skipping meals, etc.
Triggers are unique to each person, of course. While the above list is by no means exhaustive, they are some of the more general triggers.
The Symptoms
Remember how epilepsy is a seizure disorder? So it makes sense that the symptoms of epilepsy are seizure symptoms. Some of these could include:
- Temporary confusion
- Loss of consciousness
- Sudden stiffness in the muscles
- Staring spells
For focal seizures (the ones that only affect either the left or right side of the brain), some people may experience auras. An aura can be a feeling, experience or movement that can occur before a seizure.
Sometimes, a person can experience an aura without having seizures at all. But auras do warn people of oncoming seizures more often than not. Some examples of seizures include:
- A feeling of deja vu, panic or detachment
- Hearing buzzing or ringing sounds
- Sudden acidic, metallic or sweet tastes
- Or even physical effects, like nausea or headaches.
WebMD has an article that goes into more depth about auras, if you’re interested!
The Risk Factors
Certain risk factors may increase the chance of a person having epilepsy. However, by themselves these risk factors do not necessarily mean that a person will have epilepsy, just that they may be more likely to have epilepsy:
- Older age
- Dementia
- Strokes and other vascular diseases
What Are Some Myths About Epilepsy?
There can be a lot of confusion and misunderstanding regarding epilepsy, so ONE Intervention is here to help clear some of them up!
You can’t swallow your tongue during an epileptic seizure.
We’re not quite sure how this myth originated, but it’s apparently still quite widespread. To be absolutely, crystal clear – it’s physically impossible to swallow your tongue during a seizure, epileptic or otherwise.
Not all seizures involve shaking and jerking.
Shaking and jerking while unconscious is usually associated with tonic and clonic seizures, which are a type of generalised seizure (seizures that affect the right and left side of the brain.)
But for many other seizures, the symptoms are different – think of the staring spells and temporary confusion listed earlier.
An epilepsy service dog cannot be trained to ALERT seizures.
Epilepsy service dogs can be trained to respond to seizures. They can retrieve items and perform small tasks for their owners, amongst many other helpful things.
It’s true that some dogs can detect seizures and alert their owners. But this is a natural ability – according to the American Kennel Club, dogs cannot be trained into doing this. We’re still not sure exactly what dogs are detecting, so we don’t know how to train them to start or continue this ability.
How You Can Help
Donate
If you can afford it, why not donate to organisations supporting people with epilepsy? These provide care and services for people with epilepsy, as well as public advocacy efforts. Also, they help with epilepsy research.
Of course, ensure that proper research is done to check that the charities you’re donating to are trustworthy and reliable.
Here are just a couple to get started:
- Epilepsy Care Group (Singapore): ECG Singapore is a registered, non-profit charity that is meant to help caregivers and people with epilepsy.
- Epilepsy Society: This is a society based in the UK that aims to advocate for people with epilepsy through research and care.
Spread Awareness
Epilepsy is far more common than you’d think. 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy in their lifetime, and epilepsy itself is the fourth most common neurological disorder, according to Mayo Clinic.
That’s why it’s so important that we learn more about this disorder. Even if you can’t afford to donate to the above charities, you can still check out the wealth of resources that they have.
Just reading this article is a great first step to learning more about epilepsy. And if you want to help even more, you can spread the word and share this article with your friends!
