Epilepsy Treatment (Seizure or Fits )

What is Epilepsy?

Epilepsy or fits are neurological disorders marked by sudden repetitive episodes of disturbances in sensorium followed by either tonic, clonic or tonic-clonic convulsions or automatisms in case of complex partial seizures or just momentary loss of consciousness in case of Absence seizures. To make it simple for common people to understand epilepsy is hyperactivity of the neurons in the brain. Epilepsy or fits are considered to be the idiopathic disease which is one of the commonest causes of seizures.

Causes of Epilepsy
It is important to know about the causes of epilepsy that causes acute seizures in the patients so that you can get an idea about what it is all about.

• Traumatic injury of the brain
• Scarring on the brain after a brain injury has occurred
• Any serious illness or a very high fever
• Tumour or cyst in the brain
• Stroke
• Lack of oxygen supply in the brain
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Cortical venous sinus thrombosis
• Metabolic Abnormalities and Electrolyte disturbances like Hyponatremia and Hypernatremia.
• Other vascular diseases
• Maternal drug use or prenatal brain injury or malformation
• Infectious diseases like meningitis or AIDS
• Heredity or genetic or developmental disorders or any other neurological disease.
• Alcohol and drug withdrawal can also cause seizures

Now you know why epilepsy occurs but you need not worry at all since our hospital is here to take care of epilepsy at its best. Irrespective of the causes of epilepsy, our hospital is equipped with a state of art Neuro ICU to makes sure that the patients get the supreme quality treatment.

Services We Offer
Our hospital has fully trained Neurologists and epileptologists who take care of all epilepsy patients to the best of their abilities to give them the best possible care so that they recover faster. The services that we offer are as discussed below.

Counselling
Epilepsy is of chronic nature which not only affects the patients but also their family members both emotionally and financially. This is the reason as to why we offer effective counselling services to the patients and their family members so that get the necessary help in the situations of crisis. In the counselling sessions offered by our qualified & experienced counsellors, we reassure the patients that it is a disorder and not a disease so that they are able to come out of the crisis.

Education
We aim to educate the patients with epilepsy along with their family members so that they have accurate information and no misleading or false information which helps in the removal of a lot of stress, anxiety & fear. We help them to understand the exact nature of the seizure that has taken place. Our trained healthcare professionals make sure that adequate help is offered for coping with epilepsy and the impact of the initial diagnosis is reduced significantly.

Individualised Treatment Plans
At Dr.Vanchilingam Hospital, we make it a point to devise individualised treatment plans for each of the patients affected with epilepsy. We understand that each of the patients affected with epilepsy has different causes and different levels of neurological disturbance. This is the reason why we study and counsel each person affected with epilepsy and then formulate a specialised & individualised treatment plan for them to give them the best possible treatment.

Medication and Side Effect Monitoring
The selection of the medication for epilepsy varies with the type of epilepsy, age, gender and other types of medications on which the patient is already on. The main aim of medication for epilepsy is the reduction of the seizures. The drugs we prescribe to out epilepsy patients help in the reduction of the frequency and the severity of the seizures. It is to be kept in mind that the medications are not able to stop a seizure which is already in progress and neither those drugs are a cure for epilepsy. Our trained and experienced healthcare professionals use a single drug or a combination of drugs for each of the affected individuals accordingly.
But another important point that needs to be discussed here is the potential side effects caused by the medication. Some of the possible side effects are as follows.

• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Skin irritation or rashes
• Memory problems
• Improper coordination

Apart from these common side effects some of the very rare but serious side effects include inflammation of the liver or any other organs and depression. At Dr.Vanchilingam Hospital, we ensure that the side effects are closely monitored and administered effectively so that no further complications arise.

State of Art Digital EEG
EEG is the abbreviated form of Electroencephalography which is an electrophysiological method of monitoring electrical signals in the human brain. At Dr.Vanchilingam Hospital, we have a state of art digital EEG for the mapping of the activities of the brain. With this specialised infrastructure, we carry out a detailed analysis of the signals in the brain which is of great help in treating the patients with epilepsy.  

Authored By Dr Somesh Vanchilingam - Neuro Specialist, Thanjavur

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