What can trigger epilepsy in children
What causes the child to have an epileptic seizure? Epilepsy is a neurological disease that can be due to hereditary factors, infectious diseases or cranial traumas. Any seizure in the child can not be considered epilepsy, as can happen with febrile seizures. It is said that the child is epileptic i
What causes the child to have an epileptic seizure? Epilepsy is a neurological disease that can be due to hereditary factors, infectious diseases or cranial traumas.
Any seizure in the child can not be considered epilepsy, as can happen with febrile seizures. It is said that the child is epileptic if he suffers two or more seizures without any factor that has triggered (such as fever), if he loses consciousness or suffers violent muscle jerks.
What factors can trigger childhood epilepsy
Most of the crises that children suffer begin spontaneously, at a time when nothing seems to indicate that it could have propitiated the attack of epilepsy. The triggers are usually:
- Brain development problems during pregnancy.
- Lack of oxygen during or after delivery.
- Traumatic brain injuries.
- Brain tumors (rare in young children).
- Encephalitis or meningitis.
- Family background.
In addition, there are some circumstances that can precipitate a crisis in children already suffering from epilepsy, therefore it is convenient to know and avoid them:
- Do not follow the treatment: the medication must be taken regularly and at the indicated times since it must be cover a regular blood life of 24 hours.
- Fever: episodes of high fever in epileptic children can trigger epileptic seizures.
- Stress: times of great anxiety, fatigue, lack of sleep and stress affect the onset of crises.
- Luminous flashes: flashing lights and flashes trigger epileptic seizures in patients who have photosensitive epilepsy.
- Lack of sleep: insomnia or decreased sleep hours affect the onset of epileptic seizures.
What is the latest in treatments for children with epilepsy?
With the second generation antiepileptic drugs, the rate of patients with uncontrolled epilepsies was reduced, it is estimated that it has only evolved from 30 to 20 percent, so the rate of drug resistance is still very abundant. This justifies the development and commercialization of other drugs, which constitute the third generation antiepileptic drugs.
These antiepileptic drugs are new molecules that do not resemble first and second generation antiepileptic drugs (such as lacosamide, retigabine, rufinamide, talampanel, and perampanel) or that are analogues or derivatives of existing antiepileptic drugs (such as eslicarbazepine acetate) and brivaracetam).