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Psychological seizures are not a form of epilepsy
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By alreedy on PhotoBucket
Most people usually understand what an epileptic seizure is. A disorder that has episodes of uncontrolled movement, behavior and sensations. Most epileptic disorders are diagnosed with EEG testing showing affected brain waves during testing.
Sadly most seizure disorders have been diagnosed as epileptic over the years even though some patients have not officially had a positive EEG test. Now some doctors are coming forward with more information on a little known disorder that has been greatly misdiagnosed called psychiatric seizures.
Psychiatric seizures produce movements, sensations and behaviors similar to epileptic seizures but do not show any brain wave changes during an episode. During some recent research doctors have also discovered that some patients who used service dogs for seizure activity also alerted to psychiatric seizures. Thus concluding proof that service animals can detect subtle differences in their partners with psychiatric disabilities without issue as well.
Many patients with psychiatric seizures have a history of physical or sexual abuse and about 75 to 85 percent of cases are women. This disorder is co-morbid to many psychiatric illnesses, in particular depression, PTSD, dissociative and somatoform disorders, and personality pathology, especially borderline personality type. Treatment usually includes getting off of anti-seizure meds and giving appropriate psychiatric care.
Sadly when some people look for help from certain doctors they may be accused of faking a seizure disorder due to very few doctors having specialized training to recognize psychiatric seizures and because EEG tests will not pick up any abnormalities. Since ancient times these types of seizures have also been seen as a form of hysteria.
Early diagnoses, education and advocacy are extremely important when trying to help the patient cope and possibly recover from such disabling seizures. Sadly the quality of life is even lower for those who suffer from psychiatric seizures than those who have epileptic seizures. Psychiatric seizures are approximately as common as MS and trigeminal nueropathy.
So now that I caught your attention, what do you think? Seizure disorders are much more complex than one thought aren't they?
Psychiatric Seizures (Psychogenic Non-epileptic Seizures)
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