DEFINITION

The epilepsy is an illness of the brain that provokes cyclical muscular contractions, presenting before itself in the shape of partial or general convulsions. The epilepsy usually includes all the forms of convulsions of cerebral origin that have not another well-known origin, and affect 0,5 % of the population of chronic form. But of transitory form it can affect up to 5 % of the population.

CAUSES

The appearance of the typical convulsive crises of the epilepsy they are related usually to the possible causes. It usually begins in hormonal changes (pregnancy, menstruation) or for the gatillamiento of physical stimuli as there can be stimuli of light, noises, and tact, but in other cases a precise origin is not.

The stimulus to produce a convulsive crisis is very concrete in every affected epilepsy person, and there is called he to this dose or quantity of stimulus "a threshold of the convulsion". It seems that if the stimulus was the highest all the persons could do a convulsive crisis and in the epileptic ones the problem is that his threshold is very low.

The stimulus is transmitted by the nervous cells that communicate between themselves by means of chemical mediators, and across them it is transmitted by electrical stimuli, that is to say that the process is chemical and electrical. These stimuli can detect to themselves by means of an electroencephalography device that with a few special electrodes applied in different areas of the head, and a transducer they can turn reflected in a role graph. These graphs are altered in the convulsive crises and in patients with epilepsy.

• Idiopática (without identifiable cause), usually begins before 20 years, other cerebral problems are not usually, the familiar heredity is frequent.
• You would help to problems of development or genetic produced in the birth, in whose case the convulsions generally begin in the infancy.
• Metabolic alterations that can appear at any age.
  • Diabetes mellitus
  • Alterations of the electrolytic balance
  • Renal insufficiency, elevation of urea.
  • Nutritional shortcomings
  • Fenilcetonuria (it can cause convulsions in babies)
  • Other metabolic illnesses
  • Administration or poisoning with alcohol or drugs
  • Alcohol withdrawal symptoms ó you drug
• Cerebral injury. The crises can appear at any age, principally in young adults who have suffered a cerebral injury and after a latency period from 1 to 3 years it begins to convulse.
• Tumors and other cerebral injuries that occupy space in the skull, it is more frequent in adults older than 30 years. It usually appears like partial or focal convulsions later to appear in widespread tonic-clonal convulsions
• Illnesses of the blood glasses (cerebrovascular accident, isquemia cerebral, etc...) that is the most common cause of the convulsions after 60 years of age.
• Degenerative illnesses (senile dementia of type Alzheimer or other similar cerebral syndromes), in this case it affects much major persons.
• Infections (meningitis, encephalitis, cerebral abscess, complications of the AIDS, etc...), it affects at any age, there are usually reversible crises.

PREVENTION

SYMPTOMS

The epilepsy in addition to the typical convulsions symptoms appellants and chronicles can be accompanied of headache, changes in the humor or level of activity, sickness, faints, confusion and loss of the memory. Some persons present an "aura", which there are personal sensations that they indicate that a convulsion is imminent, just before suffering a widespread convulsion.

Widespread convulsions

1. Convulsions of "small evil":
   • It appears with a time exposure of minimal movements or of entire immobility except of "blinking" that can make seem to affected with a rigid aspect with a look in target.
   • Sudden and brief loss of the knowledge or the conscious activity that can last only a few seconds
   • The pictures recur often
   • They happen more often in the childhood
   • There can be an alteration in learning, often one believes that the child daydreams.
2. Tonic-clonal convulsions ó "big evil":
   • There appear violent muscular contractions of the whole body
   • The affected rigid and hard one appears
   • It usually affects to an important part of the body
   • There is loss of the knowledge
   • The respiration stops temporarily, then to sigh.
   • He accompanies himself of urinal incontinence
   • Bites can appear in the language or the interior cheeks of the mouth
   • A confusion exists after the convulsion
   • There is a weakness after the convulsion, it usually call Todd's palsy.

1. Simple partial convulsions ó focal:
   • Muscular contractions of a concrete part of the body
   • An abnormal sensibility appears
   • There is accompanied of morning sickness, sudoración, reddening of the skin and the extensive pupils.
2. Complex partial convulsions:
   • An automatism exists ó automatic execution of complex conducts
   • The abnormal sensibility appears
   • There is accompanied of morning sickness, sudoración, reddening of the skin and the extensive pupils.
   • Remembered or inappropriate emotions are evident usually
   • There exist changes of the personality or of the mental keenness
   • It can appear with loss or not of the knowledge
   • It collaborates to olfactory hallucinations (smell) or gustatory (flavor).

TO SEE ALSO

• Epilepsy: Classification and Diagnosis
• The Epilepsy and his Prognosis
• Treatment of the Epilepsy

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