The Medical Minute: The team approach to epilepsy care
Monday, March 1, 2010 - 20:14
in Health & Medicine
Epilepsy is a disease characterized by recurrent seizures, which occur when the electrical activity of the brain becomes abnormal, resulting in a variety of different symptoms (seizure types). Depending on the location of the epileptic region in the brain and its cause, there are different types of epilepsy. Individuals with epilepsy may not be able to do many of the things most Americans take for granted, such as driving, swimming and cooking. They may live in constant fear of the next seizure because they do not know when it will start or what they will be doing when it does. Epilepsy is highly treatable, and the goal is to completely control or significantly reduce the frequency of seizures and minimize medical side effects.