Symptoms

FUNCTIONAL SEIZURE

Healthy FND Living

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FUNCTIONAL SEIZURES

Functional Seizures commonly referred to as Non-epileptic seizures (NES) is a descriptive term for a diverse group of disorders which refers to paroxysmal events that can be mistaken for epilepsy, but are not due to an epileptic disorder. There are two sub-categories of Functional Seizures (NES):

  • Physiological: includes a broad spectrum of disorders, eg syncope, paroxysms of acute neurological insults, paroxysmal toxic phenomena, non-toxic organic hallucinosis, non-epileptic myoclonus, sleep disorders, paroxysmal movement disorders, paroxysmal endocrine disturbances and transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs).  Several factors can trigger a physiologic seizure such as abnormal sleeping patterns, excessive amounts of alcohol, fainting spells, hypoglycemia, low blood pressure, and other physiological conditions that affect the sugar and oxygen levels as well as the flow of blood into the brain.
  • Psychological: These type of seizures include different types:[1]
    • Dissociative seizures are involuntary and happen unconsciously. This is the most common type of NES and the person has no control over the seizures.
    • Associated with psychiatric conditions that cause seizures, eg panic attacks.

  • The true prevalence is unknown. However, it is estimated that up to one-quarter of patients admitted to epilepsy monitoring unit for evaluation of are ultimately diagnosed as having Functional Seizures.

Management

  • Management is directed at treatment of the underlying cause.
  • Various treatments have been tried with variable success for Functional Seizures. Treatment regimes for Functional Seizures include non-psychological, eg anti-anxiety and antidepressant medication and psychological therapies (including cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy and paradoxical injunction therapy). With paradoxical injunction therapy, the therapist imposes a directive that places the client in a therapeutic double bind that promotes change regardless of the client’s compliance with the directive.
  • There is currently no reliable evidence to support the use of any treatment, including hypnosis or paradoxical injunction therapy, in the treatment of Functional Seizures(NES).[7]

The differentiation between epileptic and non-epileptic seizures

The differentiation between epileptic and non-epileptic seizures can be difficult.[5]

A significant number of patients (estimated at up to 30%) having mixed epileptic and non-epileptic seizure disorders.

Features of Functional Seizures include:

  • Biting the tip of the tongue
  • Twitching in the arms and legs that lasts longer than 2 minutes
  • Gradual onset
  • Fluctuate in severity
  • Eyes are closed
  • Side to side head movements
  • Crying and/or screaming
  • Head, neck and spine bent backwards
  • Strong thrusting of the hips

Functional Seizures come with a lot of questions:  what  are they, what do they look like, what do they feel like, and how do you feel about this diagnosis.  For answers to these questions Read More

Understanding Epilepsy may help you better understand Non-Epilepsy

Epilepsy And Seizures – A Short Introduction (article)

Epilepsy is not one single disorder. It is more a term to describe a set of symptoms which may be associated with several neurological disorders. In general, someone with ‘epilepsy’ will suffer from seizures, which themselves vary enormously depending upon the precise nature and manifestation of the initial disorder.

Causes

Seizures are caused by large amounts of electrical activity within the brain. Around 50 million people worldwide are epileptic, with more new-onset cases occurring in the very young and very old. People suffering from brain injuries, or recovering from brain surgery may also suffer from epileptic seizures. Seizures themselves can vary from brief slips of attention to full-body convulsions. It is worth noting that having a seizure does not necessarily make one epileptic, as not all seizures are caused by epilepsy.

Prognosis

The prognosis for epilepsy depends upon the cause of it. In general, epilepsy cannot be cured, but it can be controlled through the use of drugs. Many patients find the drugs so successful that they rarely if ever experience a seizure. Others may need to have surgery in order to reduce their seizures. Some patients – particularly if their symptoms manifest in infancy – grow out of epilepsy. For this reason, it is generally inadvisable to operate on a small epileptic child (although this naturally varies depending upon the precise root of the disorder).

Triggers

Epileptic seizures are usually spontaneous, but some may occur in response to external triggers. ‘Reflex epilepsy’, as it is known, can cause seizures in the event of things like stress, overheating, exhaustion, and even sleep. Some women experience Catamenial epilepsy – which happens due to the female menstrual cycle. Often, epileptic triggers differ in different age groups. Adolescents, for example, are more likely to experience CND or lesion-related seizures, while the elderly may have seizures related to cerebrovascular disease. However, these are not by any means the only causes of epilepsy. Generalized epilepsy is most commonly caused by gene mutations.

Seizure Types

There are several types of seizures. One may have partial/focal onset seizures, or distributed generalized seizures. Partial seizures are further categorized as partial or complex partial seizures. These vary from absence (petit mal) seizures to tonic clonic (full-body) seizures. Epilepsy itself comes in four main types, which are themselves further divided into sub-groups based upon the location, nature, andcause of the cerebral seizure activity. Your doctor will be able to explain this more fully.

Coping

Seizure sufferers can take heart from the fact that many seizure medications have proven extremely effective, and advances are occurring in the field all the time. Should you know a seizure sufferer, or encounter somebody having a seizure, the best thing that you can do is to remove sharp object from their vicinity, protect their head, and leave them to it. If necessary, roll them onto their side.There is a myth that one must put something in a seizing individual’s mouth to prevent them from biting their tongue – in fact, this often just results in the sufferer breaking their teeth.

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FUNCTIONAL SEIZURES ARTICLES:

NON-EPILEPTIC SEIZURES (article)

“Non-epileptic seizures are incidents that bear a resemblance to epileptic seizures but are not directly triggered by electrical changes in the brain.  There are several factors that cause a non-epileptic seizure and some of them include severe mental and emotional trauma, migraine, narcolepsy, and other physiological conditions that have an effect on the flow of blood to the brain as well as constant changes in the levels of oxygen and sugar in the brain.”

“It is essential that people be aware of the symptoms of a non-epileptic seizure as it is an acute condition that needs to be taken seriously for it might lead to a potentially dangerous situation.”

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DESCRIBING DISSOCIATIVE SEIZURES (article)

“There are lots of different types of seizures, and they happen for many different reasons.  Some are caused by conditions such as low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) or a temporary change to the way the heart is working.”

“What seizures all have in common is that they are usually sudden, short, and cause a change in the person’s awareness of where they are, what they are doing, what they are thinking or what they are feeling.”

“Some people have more than one type of seizure. For example, around 15 in every 100 people with non-epileptic seizures (NES) also have epilepsy.”

“If you, or someone you know, has been diagnosed with non-epileptic seizures it may be helpful for you to identify the type of seizures that are relevant to you, and how you feel about them.”

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A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

Idiopathic Seizures

Written by Ellese Elliott

An epileptic seizure is underpinned by a mechanism involving a large group of neurons that are hyper-excitable and hyper-synchronised. This mechanism is identified using an electroencephalogram (EEG). However, not all seizures are epileptic; meaning, they are not underpinned by this specific neurological mechanism, and are therefore called non-epileptic seizures (NES).

Non-epileptic seizures have traditionally been bisected into the sub categories: physiological and psychogenic. Physiological NES’s are thought to have physiological causes and include a broad spectrum of disorders; such as syncope, sleep disorders, paroxysmal movement disorders, paroxysmal endocrine disturbances, transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs) and more. Conversely, psychogenic NES’s are thought to be caused by the mind and have been known by the terms: psychogenic-seizures, hysterical seizures, imitation seizures, dissociative seizures, functional seizures/attacks, and by the least preferential name, pseudo-seizures; a term that has now been widely rejected by the scientific community. This is not an exhaustive list.

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