The disease is mostly genetic, and is common in about one percent of the world’s population. In other cases, it may be caused after a head injury, brain tumors, or drug and alcohol use.
In many cases, the cause of the epileptic seizures is not clear, and therefore the treatment does not cure the disease but prevents the electrical disturbance and reduces the risk of having repeated seizures. Half of the patients respond well to the drug treatment and gain a full quality of life, almost without seizures. 30% suffer from severe attacks and receive complex drug treatment. While 20% are resistant to the drug treatment, some of them are candidates for surgery to remove the epileptic focus in the brain.
Sometimes the convulsions are caused by a temporary condition, such as exposure to drugs or poisons or abnormal levels of sodium or glucose in the blood. In such cases the convulsions do not recur after the problem has been resolved. In other cases, such as head injury, stroke, tumors, birth defects and metabolic diseases, the convulsions return and attack.
Epilepsy may be a disease that lasts a lifetime, but modern drug treatment allows most patients to continue a normal life and need less medication over time. In patients who do not suffer from convulsions during a period of at least four years, the doctor may stop the drug treatment altogether. Some patients who are stable without seizures are even allowed to return to driving.
Epilepsy is diagnosed using an electroencephalograph – EEG. In the test, the patient is connected to electrodes that record the brain waves over time. As changes appear in the brain wave recording, the suspicion of epilepsy that requires drug treatment increases.