Symptomatic epilepsy is a disease that occurs due to damage to the cerebral cortex. Such injuries can occur due to bruising, stroke, cysts, swelling, and so on. The clinical picture that symptomatic epilepsy has is characterized by focal seizures. The appearance of these attacks depends on which part of the brain is affected. In the event that MRI did not reveal brain damage, then most likely a person has prolonged symptomatic epilepsy.
Symptomatic focal epilepsy has simple and complex seizures. With simple, there is no disturbance of consciousness, but with complex it is greatly distorted. It should be noted that attacks can begin at any age.
Symptomatic frontal epilepsy has the following attacks:
- opercular attacks. They are associated with chewing, smacking, salivation, eye contact. Often the patient is not able to independently notice these seizures;
- motor attacks. They are associated with the contraction of various muscles (face, legs, arms, and so on);
- attacks associated with additional motor cortex are expressed in sudden tension of the limbs. Also, the patient during a seizure can strongly press them to the body;
- Adverse seizures are associated with head turns.
A focal attack in some cases lasts only a second, but sometimes drags on for several minutes. It is possible that he will develop into a generalized seizure.
Symptomatic temporal epilepsy causes the following abnormalities:
- the patient is tormented by simple auditory hallucinations. Most often he hears a squeak in his ear, a noise, and so on. Often people are tormented by an incomprehensible whistle;
- humans can be haunted by taste and olfactory hallucinations. Most often, the smell of something burnt or gasoline haunts the sick;
- illusions mean a distorted perception of reality. Most often, symptomatic epilepsy leads to the fact that patients cease to adequately perceive the size of objects;
- epileptics tormented by deja vu. That is, it seems to them that everything that is happening now was once upon a time;
- nausea, sweating, abdominal pain and so on are often observed;
- Depersonalization is observed, as well as derealization;
- patients can become sleepy, lethargic, depressed;
- obsessive thoughts can be very strong. Often they are delusional.
Parietal symptomatic epilepsy is the cause of the following attacks:
- dizzy, and a person ceases to navigate in space;
- the gaze becomes frozen. Often a person himself freezes on the spot and stops at least somehow moving;
- some parts of the body may become numb.
Occipital symptomatic epilepsy is associated with simple visual hallucinations or with the inability to focus on individual subjects. With it, twitching of the eyeballs, frequent blinking, and so on.
Secondary-generalized seizures, as a rule, appear only when the focus of excitation due to a focal seizure could spread to the whole brain.
In general, the attacks that symptomatic epilepsy causes are frequent. If the disease is not treated, then the frequency of these attacks will soon begin to increase. Damage to the patient’s cognitive function may begin.
Symptomatic epilepsy in children can begin for various reasons. Most often, it is caused by hypoxia or congenital brain damage. The factors accompanying the occurrence of the disease include transferred head injuries, various infectious diseases that affect the general condition of the body, problems with internal organs.