About epilepsy
Many people in the community have seizures. 1 in 20 (5%) children will have a seizure of some form during childhood. About 1 in 200 (0.5%) children have epilepsy ie. a neurological condition where children have a predisposition to recurrent, unprovoked seizures.
There are many different types of epilepsy, especially in infancy, childhood and adolescence. Epilepsy can be thought of in terms of either:
- the site of seizure origin in the brain (generalised and partial epilepsy) or
- the underlying cause of seizures idiopathic (primary) epilepsy, where epilepsy occurs in an otherwise normal person and is due to a genetic predisposition to seizures. Symptomatic (secondary) epilepsy, where seizures are due to an underlying abnormality of the brain structure or chemistry, and sometimes associated with other neurological problems.
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