Epileptic Seizure Symptoms – What are they?
Epilepsy is a brain disorder that is associated with epileptic seizure symptoms. It is a condition where the nerve cells of the brain cluster and the transmission of electrical impulses is thus disrupted. The unusual generation of electrical impulses by the brain usually results into uncontrolled and involuntary convulsions, thoughts, feelings and emotions that are symptoms of epileptic seizure.
The condition is quite common in young children, but it’s also prevalent in adults. There is no known cure for the different types of seizures in adults, but children usually outgrow the condition which eventually goes away with time. Epilepsy was the first brain disorder to be medically identified and thus most of the seizures are associated with the condition.
Since the condition is not transmitted over touch and via other physical means, it cannot be picked up. The epileptic condition can however be passed on from parents to children via genetics. A parent who suffers from epilepsy has a 5% chance of passing on the condition to the child, but the children often outgrow the condition.
Epileptic seizure symptoms
The mention of epileptic seizure usually draws attention to the symptoms of the seizure. One of the common perceptions with most people is that the epileptic seizure symptoms is always a convulsive seizure. While it is true that epilepsy may cause the convulsive seizures in adults, there are also variants of epilepsy that do not give off the same seizure symptoms in adults.
The convulsive seizure is referred to as a generalized tonic clonic seizure. It is characterized by seizure symptoms in adults like being unconscious, uncontrolled twitching and movements, dazing, exhaustion and loss of bladder control.
There are other types of epilepsy responsible for epileptic seizure in adults. Absence seizures have always been associated with absence of epilepsy and are quite common in young adults and children. Other common types of seizures in adults that are responsible for focal seizures are temporal lobe epilepsy seizures.
The focal seizures in adults are also referred to as auras. Neocortical epilepsy also results to seizures originating from the brain’s cortex or the outer brain layer. Such epileptic seizures in adults cause different types of epileptic seizure symptoms such as hallucinations, muscle spasms and emotional alterations.
Causes
Epilepsy seizure symptoms is triggered by damage to the brain. Any trauma or condition that will result in damaging the brain cells and nervous system will trigger epileptic seizure in adults. The triggers of epileptic seizure vary from one individual to another.
The area of the brain that is affected usually has a bearing on the triggers. The causes of different types of seizures in adults are both endogenous as well as exogenous.
The most common triggers of internal originated seizures are brain damage. Some illnesses and conditions such as stroke usually trigger the epileptic seizure. There is also a possibility of the triggers being as a result of external associations.
The exogenous cause or triggers of the epileptic seizure symptoms revolve around straining the brain. In most cases this happens via intoxicating the brain. The abuse of substances such as drugs is one of the triggers of the condition.
Prescription medicine as well as illegal drugs and alcohol are triggers to the seizures. In some cases withdrawal from the same may cause the seizures in adults as well. An imbalance of the blood composition such as increased levels of sugar or sodium also triggers the occurrence of different types of seizures in adults in adults.
Other factors such as hyperventilating or low oxygen supply have also been known to cause epileptic attacks. Although these are some of the known triggers of the seizure symptoms in adults, there are some cases when attacks of the condition are inexplicable especially if they regard psychological activity. The best thing to do is to try and avoid the epileptic seizure symptoms triggers as much as possible, though unavoidable in some cases.