Epilepsy is a disorder in which clusters of brain cells send out the wrong electrical signals, causing people to have recurring seizures. About 2.3 million people in the United States, or just under 1 percent of the population, have some form of epilepsy.

The causes of epilepsy are unknown in many cases, although some triggers include illness, high fever, brain injury, chemical imbalance, and abnormal brain development.

During an epileptic seizure, people may feel strange sensations and emotions, exhibit unusual behaviors, lose consciousness or appear to be in a trancelike state, or have violent muscle spasms. A seizure can last from a few seconds to a few minutes, and people may recover right away or remain dazed and sleepy for some time afterward.

While there is no cure, epilepsy sometimes goes away on its own. When it doesn’t, antiseizure medications can control symptoms, and surgery or implanted devices such as nerve stimulators may help treat severe cases. A meal plan called the ketogenic diet, which calls for high fat, low carbohydrate food, may help some children with epilepsy.

Epilepsy often takes an emotional toll on its victims, especially children who may suffer from taunting and bullying as a result of seizures at school. Additionally, epilepsy can impose unwanted limits on adults with the disorder, who are, for instance, denied driver’s licenses in some states. But, in about 80 percent of cases, epilepsy can be treated and people with the disorder can lead normal lives, holding the same jobs and performing the same tasks as anyone else.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

  1. Though epilepsy itself is not life threatening, people with epilepsy are at higher-than-normal risk of drowning, status epilepticus (30 minutes or more of uninterrupted seizure), and sudden death with no obvious medical explanation.
  2. Before having a seizure, some people experience warning sensations—a perceived change in sound, light, or temperature, for example—called an aura. The African folk singer Vusi Mahlasela (1965–) described his aura as a smell of bananas: “Whenever I smelt that, I’d just sit down wherever I was until the blackness came,” he once said.
  3. Scientists are currently experimenting with treatments by transplanting fetal pig neurons into the brains of epilepsy patients to learn whether stem cell transplants might help control seizures.