Warding off the social stigma and generating awareness about epilepsy remains the biggest challenge for neurologists. They are planning treatment for controlling neurological disorder which has patient losing control over his body.
While health experts (neurologists) have kickstarted a series of awareness programmes to mark the World Epilepsy Day on Thursday, removing apprehension of chronic neurological disorder from the minds of people is something they are looking forward to in the next one week. They will also organise weeklong awareness programmes.
People must understand that not all epilepsy syndromes are lifelong, some forms are confined to particular stages of childhood.
"Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as syndrome with vastly divergent symptoms, all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain and numerous seizures. One should always remain vigilant to take close look at syndromes of epilepsy as it may be mistaken for other problems," said Dr VN Mishra, associate professor at the department of neurology, Banaras Hindu University.
It may be mentioned here that as per recent WHO estimates, about 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy. Nearly two out of every three new cases are discovered in developing countries including India. Epilepsy becomes more common as people age. New cases occur most frequently in infants and the elderly. As a consequence of brain surgery, epileptic seizures may occur in recovering patients.
Saying that keeping close tab on epileptic syndromes are key to identify the neurological disorder and go for treatment (usually witnessing long medications), Dr Mishra emphasised that children might exhibit behaviours that are easily mistaken for epileptic seizures but are not caused by epilepsy.
"It is important to go for close monitoring of activities like inattentive staring and conversion disorder including jerking of head. Conversion disorder can be distinguished from epilepsy because the episodes never occur during sleep and do not involve incontinence or self-injury," he added.
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