Neurological conditions - Epilepsy Flashcards
Epilepsy is a common condition that affects the brain and causes frequent seizures.
What are seizures
Seizures are bursts of electrical activity in the brain that temporarily affects how the brain works.
- can cause a wide range of symptoms.
Epidemiology of epilespy
- Most common serious neurological condition
- affects around 600,000 people in the UK
-Around 87 people are diagnosed with epilepsy every day
- seizures are life threatening
- 1000 people die in the UK each year due to epilepsy.
-400 deaths are preventable
- HALF of the 1000 deaths are unexpected deaths in epilepsy (SUDEP), in which someone with epilepsy dies and there is no obvious causes of death that can be found.
What is epilepsy?
Chronic neurological disorder that causes repeated seizure activity.
What are seizures?
Individual occurrences of abnormal electrical activity in the brain.
Aetiology (Cause) of epilepsy
- Electrical signals in the brain become scrambled. sometimes sudden bursts of electrical activity can cause seizures.
- In most cases it is not clear why it happens.
- Epilepsy can be caused by genes affecting how the brain works properly.
- 1 in 3 people suffer with epilepsy.
Epilepsy can be caused by?
- strokes
- brain tumour
- severe head injury
-drug/alcohol misuse - Brain infection
-Lack of oxygen at birth
Aetiology (cause) of seizures
- For most people seizures happen randomly.
Seizures can be triggered by -
- stress
- lack of sleep
- waking up
- drinking alcohol
- some medicines and illegal drugs
- monthly period
Flashing lights (uncommon trigger)
keep a diary of when you have seizures.
- and what happened
Epilepsy
- Neurons usually communicate by using electrical chemical signals that cause ‘depolarisation’.
- In epilepsy neurons can send abnormal messages.
- If a neuron sent an excitatory message that causes longer-than-normal depolarisation it can make other neurons send out abnormal messages.
- if many neurons from the same part of the brain send out unusual messages together then this can cause a seizure to happen.
- for messages to cause seizures each neuron must be excited they must be connected to many other neurons with a few synapses, and the message must be large enough to cause the other neuron to act in the same way.
- If the neurons are damaged this might change how they normally work and affect how they send signals.
- if there are too many or not enough neurotransmitters this affects how the neurons can communicate and could cause more seizures.
- some neurons have ion channels that are slower than normal.
- some neurons may have different synaptic receptors that receive the neurotransmitters, this could make it harder for the neuron to signal to cause the neuron to send the message after it is not required.
Epilepsy
- Neurons usually communicate by using electrical chemical signals that cause ‘depolarisation’.
- In epilepsy neurons can send abnormal messages.
- If a neuron sent an excitatory message that causes longer-than-normal depolarisation it can make other neurons send out abnormal messages.
- if many neurons from the same part of the brain send out unusual messages together then this can cause a seizure to happen.
- for messages to cause seizures each neuron must be excited they must be connected to many other neurons with a few synapses, and the message must be large enough to cause the other neuron to act in the same way.
- If the neurons are damaged this might change how they normally work and affect how they send signals.
- if there are too many or not enough neurotransmitters this affects how the neurons can communicate and could cause more seizures.
- some neurons have ion channels that are slower than normal.
- some neurons may have different synaptic receptors that receive the neurotransmitters, this could make it harder for the neuron to signal to cause the neuron to send the message after it is not required.
Types of seizures
FOCAL
Involves part of the brain
Types of seizures
GENERALISED
involved the entire brain
Simple partial (focal) seizures are auras.
