Different Types of Seizure

The causes of seizures occur when the electrical system of the brain does not function well. In this state, the brain cells of the person keep firing rather than discharging electrical impulses in a regular manner. A seizure may cause loss of consciousness and muscle contractions.

Health professionals categorize seizures into the following types:

1. Partial Seizures

A particular area of one side of the brain is affected by the electrical disorder in partial seizures. This type of seizure is further subdivided into simple partial seizures where consciousness is kept and complex partial seizures where consciousness is messed up or completely lost.

Partial seizures are the most usual form of seizure experienced by epileptics. Nearly any movement may come about as part of partial seizures as well as intense visual and auditory hallucinations.

2. Non-epileptic Seizures

These are episodes that momentarily alter an individual’s behavior and frequently appear like epileptic seizures. The affected individual may have internal sensations that bear a resemblance to those felt in an epileptic seizure.

The distinction between these two kinds of episodes is usually difficult to identify by just watching the occurrence. Even trained medical personnel still have a hard time in doing so.

3. Generalized Seizures

These affect both sides of the brain from the start of the seizure. Generalized seizures produce unconsciousness that may last for only a few minutes or for a longer period of time. These are sub-categorized into several major types:

a. Tonic clonic seizures also known as grand mal seizures: These are the most common and best known type of generalized seizures. They begin with stiffening of the limbs which is the tonic stage, followed by jerking of the extremities and face or the clonic stage.

b. Myoclonic seizures: These produce rapid, brief contractions of muscles that typically happen on both sides of the body at the same time.

Usually, people think of them as abrupt jerks or clumsiness. A comparable experience that is common to many people who do not have epilepsy is the sudden jerk of a foot when sleeping.

c. Atonics seizures bring about a sudden loss of muscle tone. This type of seizure is also called as drop attack, a static or a kinetic seizure. Individuals experiencing this seizure may have head drops, loss of bearing or unexpected collapse. Since the occurrence of this seizure doesn’t give out any warning and the individuals who experience them fall with force, an atonics seizure usually results in head injuries.

d. Absence seizures also known as petit mal seizures: They are described as lapses of attentiveness that sometimes include staring. They usually begin and end suddenly and happen for only a few seconds.

There is no forewarning as well as an after-effect. More frequent in children than in adults, absence seizures are commonly so short that they end unnoticed even if the child goes through 50 to 100 attacks in a day.

4. Status Epilepticus

Most seizures stop after just a few minutes. If they are extended or happen in a succession, there is a greater threat of status epilepticus. This type of seizure literally denotes a continuous state of seizure.

These are the various types of seizures. Most individuals may experience just one kind but some may be affected by more than one. The type of seizure someone has depends on the affected part of the brain and how much of it is disturbed by the abnormal electrical impulses that produce seizures.

Technorati Tags: seizure,seizures,type of seizure,causes of seizures,partial seizures

The Most Common Causes of Seizures

On the whole, seizures are caused by various conditions like illness, injury and many more health issues. These health problems may include anomalies in the veins and arteries of the brain which may be the hardening of the vessels supplying the brain with blood and oxygen, bleeding or hemorrhage, brain tumors, chromosome problems, congenital abnormalities, hypertension, stroke and ischemia.

Usually, the cause depends on when the seizure started.

If the onset of seizure happened before age 2, the causes of seizures typically includes high grade fever or short-term metabolic abnormality such as irregular blood levels of sugar, calcium or sodium. These can set off a kind or more of seizure.

A seizure, most of the time, does not happen during the resolution of the fever or the abnormality. If this happens, the source can be expected as an injury at birth, other birth defects, genetic abnormality in metabolism or a brain anomaly.

The causes of seizures is often unknown if the seizure onset is between the age of 2 and 14.

A head injury, stroke, or tumor may damage the brain, causing a seizure. Sudden alcohol withdrawal is the common causes of seizures for the early to mid adult age group.

On the other hand, the causes of seizures are unknown in almost 50% of the affected people in these age groups.

Seizures with no recognizable cause are labeled as idiopathic.

Diseases are frequently a factor in the onset of seizures. These may consist of progressive liver disease, types of dementia, disorders of the nervous system, hereditary diseases, kidney failure, such as chronic renal failure and infections of the brain and its extensions which include encephalitis, brain abscess or meningitis.

The most usual injuries that may cause seizures include airway obstruction, vehicular or sports accidents that cause injury to the head, injury during pregnancy or birth and toxic animal bites or insect stings.

Other conditions that may cause seizures involve brain surgery, use of illegal drugs such as cocaine, chemical poisoning and improper or abrupt withdrawal from some medicines.

There are two general categories of seizure which include the provoked and unprovoked types.

The causes of unprovoked seizures fall under the most common causes of epilepsy and related seizure disorders.

A solitary seizure which resulted from a stimulus like lack of oxygen in the brain is called a provoked seizure and accordingly, is called a non-epileptic seizure. This may be experienced by a person without a seizure disorder history.

Most of the time, the causes of provoked seizures include sleep deprivation, head injury which may cause non-epileptic post-traumatic seizures or post-traumatic epilepsy in which the seizures chronically recur. Drug intoxication, brain infection, high fever that leads to convulsions, hypoglycemia, hyponatremia and hypoxia also causes seizures.

A few treatments create a greater possibility of seizures like electroconvulsive therapy or ECT that intentionally mean to bring on a seizure used to treat major depression.

Also, seizures can transpire subsequent to witnessing a disturbing and traumatic incident. This form of seizure is also identified as a psychogenic non-epileptic seizure. It is correlated to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Individuals with previous seizure attacks have a greater chance of having a seizure when they are under excess physical or emotional tension.

Technorati Tags: seizure,seizures,causes of seizures,cause seizures,seizure disorder,seizure attacks