Treatment for Epilepsy

What is Epilepsy?

Epilepsy is a physical condition that occurs when there is a sudden, brief change in how the brain works. When brain cells are not working properly, a person’s consciousness, movement, or actions may be altered for a short time. These physical changes are called epileptic seizures. Epilepsy is therefore sometimes called a seizure disorder. Epilepsy affects people in all nations and of all races.

Cause for Epileptic Seizures – Epileptic seizures can be caused by disruptions in the brain’s electrical activity which may lead to temporary interruption of function and cause seizures. The causes can be categorized as genetic, structural, infectious, or unknown, and may include factors like brain damage from stroke or injury, genetic predispositions, brain tumours, and infections like meningitis or encephalitis

Causes for Epilepsy can be many and some of the common ones are listed below –

Trauma
Genetic Predisposition
Space occupying lesion or brain tumours
Brain Stroke
Very raised blood pressure
Tuberous sclerosis

Other caused of Epilepsy can be infections such as:

Encephalitis
Syphilis
Cysticercosis
HIV

The main Symptoms for epilepsy:

Sudden and abrupt seizures which may last from a few seconds to many minutes.
Eyes are generally open.
The person may not appear to be breathing. The person is often breathing deeply after an episode.
The return to consciousness is gradual and should occur within a few moments.
Loss of urine is common.
Often people will be confused briefly after a generalized seizure.

Common Treatments for Epilepsy which can treat Epilepsy permanently are:

Surgery:
Surgery is most commonly done when tests show that your seizures originate in a small, well-defined area of your brain that doesn’t interfere with vital functions like speech, language or hearing.

In these types of surgeries, your doctor removes the area of the brain that’s causing the seizures. If your seizures originate in a part of your brain that can’t be removed, your doctor may recommend a different sort of surgery in which surgeons make a series of cuts in your brain. These cuts are designed to prevent seizures from spreading to other parts of the brain.

Other surgical approaches are reserved for specific types of epilepsy and are most often performed in young children. One approach is to remove a large part of one side of the brain (a hemispherectomy); another is to cut the nerve fibres connecting the two sides of the brain (a corpus colostomy).

Vagus nerve stimulation:
This therapy involves a device called a vagus nerve stimulator that’s implanted underneath the skin of your chest like a heart pacemaker. Wires from the stimulator are wrapped around the vagus nerve in your neck. The battery-powered device delivers short bursts of electrical energy to the brain through the vagus nerve. It’s not clear how this inhibits seizures, but the device can reduce seizures by 20 to 40 percent and completely control seizures in about 5 percent of people.
For less serious Epilepsy cases – Medicines are usually given.

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The Top Doctors who are specially trained in Epilepsy surgery and have massive experience in doing epilepsy surgeries are as below–