Question
A 9-year-old boy has been suffering from epilepsy for the past two years. His electroencephalogram shows spike-and-slow waves in the central, temporal, and occipital regions. His seizures are characterized by generalized sweating, accompanied by brief swallowing movements, usually occurring within an hour after sleep. This symptom was first noticed in the past six months, and the most prominent manifestation is generalized sweating. The question is whether it is possible to treat epilepsy without surgery.
Answer
Epilepsy is a attack disease caused by spontaneous abnormal discharge of neural groups in the brain, presenting symptoms such as abnormal movement, sensation, consciousness, mental state, and autonomic nervous system function. Epilepsy is categorized into primary and secondary types, corresponding to epilepsy with no clear cause and epilepsy caused by intracranial tumors, trauma, infection, etc. Treatment methods mainly rely on selecting medication based on the type of seizure. For epilepsy with a clear cause, in addition to controlling seizures, active treatment of the primary disease is also required. For intractable epilepsy that does not respond to medication, consideration can be given to stereotactic surgery to destroy brain regions associated with seizures or to perform corpus callosotomy and chronic cerebellar stimulation.