Question
My son is 9 years old and has had epilepsy for over two years. The electroencephalogram shows spike-slow wave complexes in the central, temporal, and occipital areas. The characteristic of his seizures is mainly generalized sweating, accompanied by brief swallowing movements. Each seizure lasts only a few seconds. He previously had cheek twitching, but now the most prominent symptom is sweating, which makes his entire body wet. Seizures usually occur about an hour after sleep, and this condition has persisted for about six months.
Answer
Epilepsy is a disease characterized by sudden, recurrent episodes of abnormal electrical discharge in groups of brain neurons, leading to abnormal motor, sensory, consciousness, mental, and autonomic nervous system functions. Epilepsy without a clear cause is known as idiopathic epilepsy, while epilepsy secondary to intracranial tumors, trauma, infection, parasitic diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, systemic metabolic diseases, etc., is called secondary epilepsy. Treatment mainly involves selecting appropriate medications based on the type of seizure. For epilepsy with a clear cause, active treatment of the primary disease should be considered under the premise of effective control of seizures. For intractable epilepsy that does not respond to medication, it may be considered to perform stereotactic surgery to destroy brain regions related to seizure activity or to perform corpus callosotomy or chronic cerebellar stimulation.