Chapters Transcript Video Preventing Sudden Death From Uncontrolled Seizures Epilepsy is a condition that is characterized by a predisposition towards having recurrent and unprovoked seizures. The seizures themselves are caused by abnormal electrical activity within the patient's brain. What ultimately causes that abnormal electrical activity can vary across people with epilepsy. So, epilepsy isn't just one disease. When we talk about epilepsy, we divide it really into two main groups and that's based on what parts of the brain are involved in the seizure activity. So the two main groups are what we call focal epilepsy where the seizures originate in one part of the brain and then generalized epilepsy where the seizure activity seems to begin in large areas of the brain or sort of the whole brain all at once. Obviously, if people are having seizures where they do lose consciousness or they lose control of their body, their ability to kind of react to situations, they are a number of activities that they need to be cautious about. We talk about things like doing activities at heights. So, you know, if you've got to go up a ladder to change a light bulb for your rock climber or something like that, the risk to you, if you were to lose consciousness then could be quite high. Similarly, activities around water. And that does, doesn't just include, you know, swimming or surfing, but even bathing uh can be risky. One of the other biggest risks for people living with epilepsy is what's called sudden unexpected death in epilepsy or suit up and suit up affects about one in 1000 people with epilepsy every year. And in this circumstance, a person living with epilepsy is essentially found dead often in their sleep or in their bed. Um and sometimes there is evidence that they may have had a seizure immediately before they died. Sometimes it's not clear what we do know is that people who have more seizure control, particularly control of a type of seizure called generalized tonic clonic seizures. What everyone thinks of when they think of a seizure where the person loses consciousness falls and convulses. Uh though that type of seizure is the highest and strongest associated risk factor for sudden death in epilepsy. So, control of that type of seizure in particular is the most important thing we can do to reduce the risk whether that's through medications, through surgeries or other interventions. Anyone who is having difficulty with controlling their seizures, particularly if they've failed a trial of at least two seizure, medications should be referred or seek out uh assessment by a specialized epilepsy center such as the one we have here at Cedars Sinai. And secondly, to try and come up with a better management plan to help uh give you better control of your seizures. Created by
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