What is epilepsy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB_C2SeK1BI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Duncan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlfRaJ_3uSU


I'm John Duncan, I'm a _______________ at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and
I also work as Professor of neurology at UCL [University College London] and as Medical Director of
the National Society for Epilepsy at Chalfont. In general there's very poor public _______________
about epilepsy and there's a huge need for people to understand what epilepsy is, what
_______________ it and how it's treated. To get and idea of the _______________ of the problem,
thirty thousand people a year _______________ epilepsy in the UK, eighty people a day. Now, two
thirds of those will do well. They will take medicine and the disease will _______________ under
control. And life will pretty much return to normal. For about one third of them, though, that's
about ten thousand a year, the epilepsy is more _______________ to treat, and even with
combinations of drugs the people may carry on having seizures. There's a whole wide _______________
of epileptic seizures. What people generally think of as an epileptic seizure is the
_______________, when somebody goes stiff, they've perhaps _______________ at the mouth, fall to
the ground, arms and legs are jittering, they may bite their tongue, pass urine and be
_______________ for some minutes, and then come around afterwards. But that's only the most severe
form of epileptic seizure. There're many other _______________ that are less severe and perhaps
wouldn't easily be recognised. So for example, somebody may have attacks that only give rise to a
strange feeling in the stomach, or [a] feeling of déjàvu, of having been there before,
_______________ just a few seconds, and that's all that happens. So that somebody with that person
wouldn't know anything that happened. That'd be one of those _______________ forms of epilepsy. Or,
again, somebody might have an episode where there's just some jerking, some _______________ of a
thumb. Or it may be something called an absence, whereby somebody simply goes _______________,
wouldn't know what was happening, stare vacantly for one or two seconds and then is back to normal.
So there's a whole range of different kinds of epileptic seizures, whole range of _______________.
If anybody has a concern that they may have epilepsy, the first thing to do is to see their general
practitioner to explain the symptoms, and the GP then - if they think that epilepsy is a
possibility - is likely to _______________ them to a specialist. That should be someone known as a
neurologist who deals with [the] _______________ affecting the brain and the nervous system. And
there're neurology clinics in every district _______________ hospital throughout the country where
they would be seen and [their] history would be gone over and have [an] examination and then have
the _______________ tests to see if this is the correct diagnosis and what might be causing it. And
then they would be able to decide if indeed epilepsy was thought to be the cause, what medicine
would be the most _______________ thing to take. Now, there are a lot of medicines that we can
_______________, they make seizures less likely to occur and people have to be clear that this is
_______________ treatment, it isn't like taking antibiotics for [an] infection, we take it for
five, ten days, then right over, everything's fixed. This would be similar to, say, taking
_______________ for somebody with diabetes, the treatment, once started, is going to be long-term.
Usually for at least two or three years and for many people many years longer from [than] that. So
it's important that the treatment is well-_______________. So the overall outlook for most people
is good. They will have the seizures, it'll be _______________, it'll be treated and life can
pretty much then go back to normal.


Mark’s story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF8J6yF850k


When was Mark diagnosed with epilepsy?



Where is the place of origin of Mark’s seizures?



How often does Mark get the seizures?



What exactly happens to Mark during a seizure?



How long are his seizures?



Which area of Mark’s life is affected the most by epilepsy?



When diagnosed with epilepsy, what did Mark have to stop doing first?



What are the side effects that Mark mentions?



When is Mark going to have a surgery of his brain?



What does Mark expect from the operation?