What are the symptoms of epilepsy in children?

Written by Li Jiao Yan
Neonatology
Updated on September 12, 2024
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Seizures in children manifest in various forms, but they all share characteristics of sudden onset, sudden cessation, and periodic occurrence. Common types include grand mal seizures, absence seizures, and benign childhood epilepsy. During a grand mal seizure, the child suddenly loses consciousness, stops breathing, turns blue-purple, pupils dilate, limbs stiffen, hands clench into fists, followed by spasmodic convulsions, foaming at the mouth, with the episode generally lasting 1-5 minutes. Absence seizures in children present as sudden loss of consciousness, interruption of activity, staring or rolling of the eyes, but without falling down or convulsing, lasting 1-10 seconds, with consciousness quickly returning after the episode. Benign childhood epilepsy seizures often involve twitching of one side of the face, lips, or tongue, possibly accompanied by abnormal sensations in the area, inability to speak, drooling, generally with clear consciousness, with episodes occurring more frequently at night.

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Written by Tang Bo
Neurology
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Is epilepsy easy to treat?

Epilepsy is a disease for which the cause can be identified in some patients, while in others it may remain unknown. Initially, it is important to investigate the cause of epilepsy. Moreover, if an individual experiences multiple seizures, medication intervention becomes necessary. The primary goal of drug treatment for epilepsy is to control it and prevent further seizures, since each seizure can cause brain cell damage, potentially leading to long-term effects like memory decline and slower reaction times. Therefore, active control of epilepsy through medication is crucial. Whether epilepsy can be completely cured depends on its underlying cause. In some cases, identifying and eliminating the cause may prevent further seizures. However, for some patients, even if the cause is identified, such as a past stroke or tumors that induce epilepsy, seizures may continue even after the tumor is removed. Meanwhile, for epilepsy of unknown origins, the approach is to control the condition using medication to minimize the occurrence of seizures as much as possible, though it is not guaranteed that seizures will not happen again in the future.

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Written by Liu Hong Mei
Neurology
1min home-news-image

Is primary epilepsy easy to treat?

Primary epilepsy is treatable. Primary epilepsy may be related to fetal asphyxia, ischemia, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or psychological stimulation during the fetal period. Primary epilepsy generally excludes intracranial space-occupying lesions, brain tumors, strokes, cerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, encephalitis, meningitis, and other diseases. Primary epilepsy, through lifestyle, diet, and medication, is relatively easy to treat. Compared to secondary epilepsy, the treatment outcomes and prognosis are better. Patients with primary epilepsy can be treated with medications to control seizures and should avoid overexertion in their daily lives.

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Written by Liu Shi Xiang
Neurology
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What can severe epilepsy lead to?

Severe epilepsy can cause many complications, such as cerebral edema, brain herniation, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, etc. Therefore, severe epilepsy can seriously threaten the patient's life. If the patient's epilepsy is not controlled in time, it can easily lead to a state of status epilepticus. Status epilepticus is a very dangerous central nervous system disease. Patients may experience sudden respiratory and circulatory arrest and uncontrollable massive gastrointestinal bleeding. For severe epilepsy patients, it is necessary to promptly administer medications such as diazepam and sodium valproate to terminate the seizures. If status epilepticus occurs, the patient needs to be urgently sent to the ICU for observation and treatment, and effective interventions for various complications must be provided. For example, in the case of cerebral edema caused by epilepsy, medications such as mannitol and glycerol fructose are needed to dehydrate and reduce intracranial pressure. If epilepsy causes acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding, treatments to suppress acid, stop bleeding, and maintain blood pressure are required.

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Written by Yan Xin Liang
Pediatrics
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What are the symptoms of epilepsy in children?

Common symptoms of epilepsy in children generally include sudden convulsions. During a convulsion, the typical manifestations are tightly closed or staring eyes, rolled-up eyeballs, clenched teeth, twitching at the corners of the mouth, frothing at the mouth, head and neck thrown back, and repetitive flexing or rigid shaking of the limbs. Generally, these can last for a few minutes, or vary from several seconds to ten minutes. Of course, there are also focal seizures, such as twitching of one side of the body, or absence seizures. Some infantile spasms are characterized by jackknife movements, occurring in clusters, with each display being different. The symptoms described earlier are typical of a generalized tonic-clonic seizure.

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Written by Li Jiao Yan
Neonatology
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incidence of epilepsy in children

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder, with the highest incidence in children under the age of one. The prevalence of epilepsy in China ranges from 0.4% to 0.7%, with nine million epilepsy patients, of which six million have active epilepsy. Every day, there are 400,000 new cases of epilepsy, with a prevalence of up to 1% among those aged sixteen and under. There are many children with epilepsy, experiencing various types of seizures, each with its own characteristics, but all share the features of sudden onset, abrupt cessation, and periodicity.