L.A. Parent: Understanding the Signs of Epilepsy in Children
L.A. Parent recently interviewed pediatric epilepsy expert Deborah Holder, MD, a neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, about epilepsy symptoms in children and how the condition is diagnosed and treated.
Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes repeated seizures. Because the condition’s symptoms can be subtle, it is often disregarded or misdiagnosed.
Holder told L.A. Parent that a convulsive seizure, during which a person loses consciousness and falls down while the whole body convulses, is the rarest type of seizure.
“Every day in the clinic, I see children who have had for years what many people call ‘funny spells,’” Holder told L.A. Parent. “A child may have an uncontrollable motor activity, such as twitching of an arm or one leg, or twitching of one side of the face that lasts for 30 seconds. If a child has the same feeling or sensation or behavior that happens over and over again, that is a sign the child might be having seizures.”
Holder said that epilepsy can often be diagnosed by talking to the family or seeing a video recording of the child having a “funny spell.”
“We are very good at being able to tell by looking at the recording if the event is a seizure or not,” Holder told L.A. Parent.
Treatment for epilepsy in children can range from medication and special diets to targeting the affected area of the brain with a laser, for seizures that are harder to control. Holder noted that many children outgrow seizures as their brains grow and develop.
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