Brain Disorders: The Four Types Of Epilepsy

“You don’t know how strong you are until being strong is your only option” (Bob Marley). Epilepsy is a disorder where your strength is imperative. “Epilepsy is the most common serious brain disorder worldwide. It has no age, racial, social class, national or geographic boundaries” World Health Organization (WHO). Seizures typically last a few seconds to a few minutes; however, the postictal period (where the level of awareness gradually improves) can last from seconds to hours. According to Robert S. Fisher, for a seizure to be considered epilepsy you must have two or more, or at least one seizure with a high chance of another. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that has several distinctive categories, affects a person’s mental and physical ability, and has many causes. …show more content…
The first one is primarily generalized seizures. It begins with a wide spread electrical discharge that involves both sides of the brain at once, and accompanied by sudden generalized movements or lose of consciousness. The other is a partial seizure, which begins with an electrical discharge in one limited area of the brain. A generalized seizure includes atonic colonic seizures (once called grand mal seizures). It starts with stiffening or lose of consciousness (tonic phase), then moves to jerking which lasts several minutes (colonic phase). Without both it is no longer considered an atonic colonic seizure, it is just an atonic or colonic seizure. Generalized seizures also have absent and myoclonic seizures, that play a part on a person’s physical and mental ability. Partial seizures can be further broken down or described in two additional criteria: simple partial seizures and complex partial seizures. They are only considered complex partial seizures, if they