Complex Partial Seizures

I became shocked a few days ago when I got informed of the news through Facebook that one of my ex-classmate had been diagnosed with Complex Partial Seizures. I and my friends talked about this and we felt weird as she had never shown any symptoms before.

I want to know more about this information thus decided to read about it. Let’s see what Complex Partial Seizures is all about.

The term ‘complex partial seizure’ was originally defined by the International League Alliance on Epilepsy (ILAE) in 1981. A seizure is an abnormal, unregulated electrical discharge that occurs within the brain’s cortical gray matter and interrupts normal brain function. It is also defined as a sudden alteration of behavior due to a temporary change in the electrical functioning of the brain, in particular the outside rim of the brain – called the cortex. It typically causes abnormal sensations, altered awareness and focal involuntary movements. In fact about 2% of adults have a seizure at some time during their life while two thirds of these people never have another one.

The seizures usually last between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. After the period, the person may be tired or confused for about 15 minutes and some of them may not be fully normal for hours. My friend told her experience through her ‘wall post’ that usually she will stuck about 5-8 minutes anywhere anytime and needs time to recover after that.

Some people can have seizures of this kind without realizing that anything has happened. Because the seizure can wipe out memories of events just before or after it, memory lapses can be a problem. When an individual is aware of the beginning of the seizure, it may be thought as a warning or ‘aura’. Sometimes an individual may not be aware of the beginning and therefore have no warning or signs of the seizure.

The middle of the seizure may take several different forms where for people who feel the warnings, the aura may simply continue or it may turn into a complex partial seizure or a convulsion while for those who do not feel any warning, the seizure may continue as a complex partial seizure or it may evolve into a convulsion.

The end to this seizure is the transition from the seizure state back to the individual’s normal state where this period is referred as the ‘post-ictal period’, signifies the recovery period for the brain. It might last from seconds to minutes to hours, depending on several factors including which part of the brain that were affected by the seizure or any medication/treatment.

My friend that I had mentioned before will go for operation of the lower part of her brain. Let’s hope that she will recover soon. And one thing that I know after reading information related to this matter is – epilepsy is not necessarily inherited.

I found a lot of videos showing how seizures happen and one of them shows the example of absence seizure happened to a girl. You might want to take a look on the video below.

Besides, there is a channel for The Center for Epilepsy & Seizure Education on YouTube dedicating on spreading the message about epilepsy to the public. Let’s take a look to understand more.

If you have any additional information or experience about Complex Partial Seizures or any information related to it, you are welcomed to share your words through the comment section below.