What is Epilepsy?
June 1, 2009
Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which the nervous system of a person is affected. Epilepsy is also known as seizure disorder and can occur to anyone – men or women at any point of time. A person suffering from Epilepsy gets seizures which cause a lot of discomfort and this repetitive occurrence of seizures is called as epilepsy. So just like people get hiccups or heart attacks, similarly people suffering from epilepsy get seizures.
So what are these seizures?
Our brain works on electric signals. While there are some cells in our brain that function as carriers which send the electric signals, others act as receivers which receive the electric signals from the carriers and propagate further indicating the brain to take actions. Now when these carriers and receivers function in proper equilibrium, the state of the brain is balanced. But when there is some disturbance in the transfer of the electric signals, the brain gets confused and that’s when a person is said to get seizure. Seizures cause a person to look completely blank for a few seconds and such a person often looks confused.
Now when a person gets more than two seizures in a short period of time and suffers from this often is said to suffer from epilepsy, which is a condition related to the multiple occurrence of seizures. As said earlier, epilepsy can occur to anyone at anytime and at any age. Since it is not a contagious disease or a case of mental retardation, its occurrence in an individual is difficult to judge. Also, there is no permanent cure for epilepsy as it has been observed that this condition develops in children and eventually goes away as they age.
There are different types of epilepsy depending upon the symptoms and the severity of seizures that occur to an individual. Therefore it should not be concluded that a person who is talking absurdly or has lost his mental balance is suffering from epilepsy. It is not easy to detect this condition and hence it is advisable to consult a medical professional and get the individual properly examined.
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