Causes And Ways Of Treatment Of Epilepsy Research Paper Sample

Epilepsy is known from the antique literature. At that time people didn’t know or understand the causes of it and as a result they have thought of those suffering from this disease as of possessed ones. But with the development of medicine doctors dispelled all prejudices and defined epilepsy as the malfunction of brain that causes repetitive uncontrolled seizures. This is a widely spread disease. There are two main groups of risk: teenagers and elderlies.
Despite the fact that a number of studies has already been carried out through decades, epilepsy still has its mysteries. The main one of them is the causes of this disease. Almost in 70% of cases it is impossible to distinguish the cause of illness. There are some reasons that there is some kind of genetic predisposition to this disease, approximately in 40% of cases, but this still has not been proven. Taking all these facts into account epilepsy has been subdivided into 3 types on the basis of the cause. The first one is idiopathic. In this case the patient has a family history of this disease. Second type is called symptomatic. The patient is diagnosed with this type of epilepsy, if there are any structural defects of brain. These defects might be caused by craniocerebral injury, diseases caused by different viruses or parasites (meningitis is one of them), tumor, anoxaemia caused by circulatory disorders. Also, developmental disorders, like autism or neurofibromatosis, are often identified as direct causes of epilepsy. For example, according to statistics derived from Epilepsy Foundation, three out of ten children with autism disorder are endangered by seizures. And the last type of epilepsy is genuine epilepsy. This one includes all cases when the cause of the illness could not be detected.
As it has been mentioned before, epilepsy is characterized by mainly uncontrolled seizures. Due to this fact, a number of countries forbid people with this diagnosis to occupy a wide spectrum of positions, mainly the ones involving direct contact with other people (teachers, actors, etc.). Taking this into consideration, there is no doubt that patients suffering from this neurological disorder are wide open to different types of treatment, hoping if not to recover in full, but at least get control over the seizures. The most wide spread treatment method is drug therapy. The doctor prescribes a set of medications that will influence one particular portion of the brain, the one causing seizures, in order to decrease the number of attacks or to eliminate them in full. The patient should be extra careful with doze of drugs and follow doctor’s prescription. One of the constraints that the patient might come across with this type of treatment is that not all types of drugs are covered by the insurance company, but doctors do their best to provide alternatives in such cases. And of course, there is a great chance of getting side effects from the set of drugs that the patient should consume in order to control the illness. Side effects might be predictable, idiosyncratic and unique.
Another way to treat epilepsy is surgical intervention, but it is usually practiced only in case drug therapy appeared to be useless. The patient is thoroughly examined before he is admitted for the surgery. This caution is cause by the fact that during the operation part of the brain will be permanently removed and it is highly important to firstly make sure that this will result in improvement of patient’s condition and not the other way around. In case the surgery is chosen as a treatment method for a child, there is also hemispherectomy approach available, due to the fact that it will be possible for a young brain to develop all vital functions on the basis of just one hemisphere.
Recently an innovative treatment method appeared – ketogenic diet. But due to its complexity, it is recommended only for young children and is carried out mainly in hospital.

Work Cited

Epilepsy. Mayo Clinic Staff. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 22 Nov.
2014 Web 10 Apr. 2015.
Epilepsy Foundation of America, Inc. Landover, MD. Epilepsy Foundation. n.d. Web. 10 Apr.
2015