T. Headache/Seizures Flashcards
Functional Headaches
migraine, tension
Organic Headaches
SECONDARY HEADACHE
from intracranial or extracranial disease.
Migraine Headache
- Unilateral, steady throbbing pain
- aura
- Generalized edema, irritability, pallor, N&V, sweating, sensitivity to noise, photophobia,
Tension Type Headache
- “stress headache”
- Bilateral frontal-occipital location
- Pressure or bandlike
- Can have associated neck pain and increased muscle tension.
- Minutes to days
primary headache
A primary headache is caused by overactivity of or problems with pain-sensitive structures in your head
secondary headache
a symptom of a disease that can activate the pain-sensitive nerves of the head.
Cluster Headache
- Rare, severe headache
- Intense, stabbing, ipsilateral
- Attacks last about 97 minutes.
- Associated with tearing, flushing, pupil constriction, agitation, eye swelling.
Seizures
- Transient uncontrolled neuronal activity in the brain, interrupting normal function
- abnormal neurons undergo spontaneous firing.
- Firing spreads to adjacent or distant areas of the brain.
- If activity involves whole brain, generalized seizure occurs.
Epilepsy
- Condition in which a person has at least two spontaneous seizures >24 hours apart, caused by underlying chronic pathology
- 50% to 60% of all seizure disorder cases cannot be attributed to a specific cause.
Generalized Seizures
- occurs when the abnormal electrical activity causing a seizure begins in both halves (hemispheres) of the brain at the same time.
- Characterized by bilateral synchronous epileptic discharges in brain from seizure onset
- No warning or aura as entire brain is affected
- Loss of consciousness from seconds to minutes
Tonic–clonic seizures
(formerly known as grand mal)
- Characterized by loss of consciousness and falling
- Body stiffens (tonic) with subsequent jerking of extremities (clonic).
- Cyanosis, excessive salivation, and tongue or cheek biting may occur.
- Postictal phase for tonic–clonic characterized by muscle soreness, fatigue; client may sleep for hours
- May not feel normal for days
- No memory of seizure
Ictal phase
the time from the first symptom to the end of the seizure activity.
postictal phase
the period of time immediately following a seizure
Typical absence seizures (petit mal)
- Occurs only in children and rarely into adolescence
- May cease or develop into another type
- Typical symptom is staring spell for only a few seconds and usually goes unnoticed.
- Brief loss of consciousness
- May occur up to 100 times/day if untreated
Atypical absence seizures
- brief (usually less than 15 seconds) disturbance in brain function
- characterized by staring spell with other signs and symptoms
- Brief warnings
- Peculiar behaviour during seizure
- Confusion after
- Atypical seizures are similar to typical seizures, except they tend to begin more slowly, last longer (up to a few minutes), and can include slumping or falling down.
Myoclonic seizure
- brief jerky movement in a single muscle or muscle group
- Characterized by sudden, excessive jerk of body and extremities
- Can be forceful enough to cause fall
- Brief and may occur in clusters
Atonic seizure
- brief loss of muscle tone
- involves tonic episode or paroxysmal loss of muscle tone, and person falls
- Consciousness usually returns by the time person hits ground and can resume normal activity.
- Great risk for head injury
Tonic seizures
involve sudden onset of Increased muscle tone in one extremity.
Clients often fall.
Clonic seizures
- uncontrollable, constant movement in the arms or legs
- begin with loss of consciousness and sudden loss of muscle tone.
- Followed by limb jerking
Focal Seizures
- Caused by focal irritations
- Begin in specific region of cortex
- May be confined to one side of brain and remain partial or focal in nature
- May involve entire brain, accumulating in tonic–clonic
- Divided into Focal aware and focal impaired awareness
Focal Aware
- simple motor or sensory phenomena with elementary symptoms with no loss of consciousness and lasting less than 1 minute
- a seizure that happens while a person is awake and alert and aware of what is going on
Focal Impaired Awareness
- involve behavioural, emotional, affective, sensory, and cognitive functions
- Temporal lobe
- Last longer then a minute
- Often a postictal stage.
- Most common involves lip smacking and automatisms.
Status epilepticus
state of constant seizure or condition when seizures recur in rapid succession without return to consciousness between seizures
Tonic–clonic status epilepticus
is most dangerous as it can cause ventilatory insufficiency, hypoxemia, cardiac arrhythmias, hyperthermia, and systemic acidosis.
• condition in which prolonged or recurrent tonic-clonic seizures persist for 30 minutes or more
• Most tonic-clonic seizures last less than two minutes; nevertheless many seizures that continue for less than 30 minutes self-terminate.
