Seizures are common in children with cerebral palsy, but it’s important to note that not all children will experience them, and the ones that do may have different types that vary in severity. As a parent or caregiver, you’ll need to learn how to recognize the signs that a seizure is approaching and how to handle it once it begins.
What Are Seizures?
According to the Epilepsy Foundation, a seizure is defined as an electrical surge to the brain that affects how someone acts for a short period of time. The surge of electrical activity is caused by chemical changes in nerve cells that cause the body to convulse and lose consciousness.
Epilepsy is often the main reason for a child having seizures, but anyone is susceptible to having a seizure, at any time and at any age, regardless of health. Seizures become diagnosed as epilepsy when a child has more two or more unwarranted seizures.
Seizure Causes
Seizures are typically triggered when the electrical activity in the brain misfires somehow, which can be caused for numerous reasons, including: Brain damage, head injuries, reaction to certain medications, dehydration or electrolyte imbalance, high fever, tumors, low blood sugar, genetic factors and infections
Children with cerebral are likely to have at least one seizure or more during their lifetime. In many instances, children with cerebral palsy will experience both generalized seizures and partial seizures. Generalized seizures affect the entire brain, whereas partial seizures affect one side of the brain.
About Generalized Seizures
Generalized seizures, considered more dangerous than partial seizures, have numerous different types. The most common type and most severe type of a generalized seizure is the tonic-clonic seizure. When a child experiences a tonic-clonic seizure, he/she may have violent body shakes, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. They also may make loud noises which can be extremely unsettling and scary to parents or caregivers who witness it.
Other symptoms of an absence seizure include pale skin, slowed speech (afterward), weak hand grip, and walking in a transfixed type state after the seizure ends. Absence seizures can begin in early childhood or during the early teen years but usually go away once the child is 18.
There is no cure for seizures, but certain medications and diet plans have both proven to help curb the frequency of seizures and control the severity in many children.
