Epilepsy Health Center

Due to the complexity of the brain and its function, there are more than 32 types of seizures. There are many different words used to describe seizures; some of them include:

• convulsions
• epileptic attacks
• tonic-clonic seizures. Most seizures last from a few seconds to a few minutes and stop naturally.

Seizures that limit themselves to one part of the brain are called partial seizures. These seizures are usually labeled using the area of the brain that they started from. In partial seizures, the person may experience sudden feelings of joy or sadness or sudden sensations of smell, hearing, or vision.

Another kind of partial seizure is called a complex partial seizure. During this kind of seizure, the patient may display abnormal repetitive behaviors, such as blinking, moving in a circle, striking out at walls or moving an arm or leg without being able to control the movement.

Seizures that spread to the rest of the brain are called generalized seizures. These seizures may cause the person to:

• lose consciousness
• fall
• have muscle spasms
• have jerking muscles all over the body or
• stare into space, losing contact with reality for a few seconds. Not all people who have a seizure have epilepsy. Some people have just one seizure at some point in their life and never have another one.

Sometimes a child may have a seizure during an illness with a high fever. Most of the time, these seizures do not recur unless there has been damage to the brain. When a person has a seizure, the brain shows abnormal electrical activity that can be recorded by doctors on a special machine called EEG.

Some people have seizure-like behavior without any abnormal electrical activity. These are called non-epileptic seizures or pseudo-seizures. They may occur due to psychological reasons, such as stress or need for attention.

Some people can tell when they are about to have a seizure because they have a specific feeling before the seizure starts; this is called an “aura”. The most common aura is the smell of burnt rubber.